Pilot: No Mechanical Problems

The pilot of a Chinese airliner that crashed in southern South Korea with 166 people on board told officials Tuesday that his plane had no mechanical problems before it went down.

The Chinese pilot, Wu Xing Lu, was among 38 people who survived the Monday crash. He was hospitalized with extensive facial bruises and a minor brain hemorrhage.

The Boeing 767-200 crashed into a fog-shrouded mountainside on Monday as it approached Kimhae airport near South Korea's second city of Pusan in heavy rain and wind just six weeks before the start of the soccer World Cup finals.

"He testified he felt nothing unusual with the aircraft," South Korean investigators said in a statement quoting the 32-year-old Chinese pilot, who was one of 38 known survivors.

Wu also told them he had landed at Kimhae airport four or five times this year, most recently last week, it said.

"It was his first turning approach into Kimhae airport," the statement added.

South Korean officials have suggested human error was to blame for the crash.

"We believe this is a classic case of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain)," Ham Dae-young, a South Korean aviation official, said Monday. "We must note that 95 percent of CFIT cases are due to pilot error."

The death toll rose to 124 Tuesday as rescue workers recovered four bodies from the mangled wreckage of the Boeing 767-200. Four people were listed as missing.

Most who survived were in the front part of the 17-year-old Boeing Co 767-200-ER and were thrown clear into trees, local media said.

Aviation officials said the airport's control tower gave Wu's plane permission to land but asked the pilot to approach the runway from the opposite direction because of a strong headwind. It hit the mountain while circling to the other side of the airport.

Officials said the pilot flew 1.3 miles beyond the designated spot to turn back toward the airport and hit the mountain, 2.8 miles from the runway.

It was unclear whether the pilot had been briefed on weather conditions and terrain around Kimhae Airport before embarking on the flight in Beijing, Ham said.

Flight CA129, a nonstop flight from Beijing, was approaching in heavy rain and fog when it hit the 1,000-foot forest-covered mountain.

The jet shattered and caught fire on impact, leaving a trail of fallen trees 30 yards wide and 100 yards long.

The 31-year-old pilot was interviewed for the first time Tuesday. The pilot was shown on television mumbling painfully and affirmatively through bloodied, swollen lips when a reporter asked whether he was the captain and had flown to Kimhae before.

Luan Bao, a director at China's Civil Aviation Administration, inspected the crash site on Tuesday with several aides. He said China will cooperate fully in the South Korean-led investigation. American air safety officials will also join in the probe.

Ham said the cockpit voice recorder was found Tuesday. The flight data recorder was recovered a day earlier.

An earlier report from the Transport Ministry's emergency center said Chinese and South Korean investigators agreed to wait for a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team to arrive before analyzing a recovered flight recorder.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said in Beijing on Tuesday her government "attaches great importance to the incident."

Tens of thousands of World Cup fans from around the world are set to visit co-hosts South Korea and Japan. Most will arrive by air because Japan is a group of islands and South Korea is on the end of a peninsula with a closed border with North Korea.

Pusan is one of the venues for the World Cup and also for this year's Asian Games.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said in Beijing Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both on overseas trips, "closely followed the incident" and have sent telegrams of condolences to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

The 17-year-old plane carried 135 Korean passengers, 19 Chinese and one Uzbek, Air China's Seoul office said. Its 11 crew members were Chinese.

DNA tests will be needed to identify most of the bodies, which were severely burned or damaged beyond recognition. Only three have been positively identified.

The wreckage looked like shredded pieces of paper. The plane's broken tail and nose came to rest near the top of the mountain, where a lack of access roads slowed the rescue.

Hundreds of bereaved family members and friends gathered at Kimhae City Hall, waiting for word of their loved ones.

"Where's my son? Where's my son?" 78-year-old Jun Young-bong mumbled as he paced around the city hall. His 43-year-old son, Jun Sang-bae, was not on the survivors' list.

Survivors said the plane went down shortly after an in-flight announcement advising passengers to buckle their seat belts to prepare for landing.

Air China is the country's national flag carrier and one of three major international carriers based in China. It was the first fatal crash involving Air China since its establishment in 1988.