TAIPEI, Taiwan - It was the second accident in three days for airlines in Taiwan. On Tuesday, 28 people were injured in the flames that engulfed the cabin of UNI Airlines MD-90 as it landed at Hualien airport. Some passengers were rushed to local hospitals with burns covering 60% of their body. This accident comes in the wake of the China airlines plane that went down on Sunday.

In Taipei, a Taiwanese aviation regulator offered an explanation for the incident.

The co-pilot, Liu Cheng-hsi, had told the pilot, Gerardo Lettich, that the winds were blowing at 26 miles per hour but in fact they were blowing at *30* miles per hour, said Chang Kuo-cheng, the deputy director general
of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Many people now question the volatility of the 168,000-pound Boeing MD-90, which will apparently burst into flames if sneezed upon. A four-mile an hour difference in wind evidently means the difference between a "Nice touchdown" and a "Goddamn Hindenburg."

Boeing spokesperson, Renee Zeit says that it’s not a design flaw, but rather pilot error that causes the plane to erupt into a fiery mass of molten aircraft aluminum. "The MD-90 is one of our "bargain" planes, and while we stand behind all of our products, pilot error is something that is out of our control. That’s some tough titties to chew on for those folks that are now walking pus-sacs, I suppose – but hey – that’s life."

Pilot Lettich also said there was "some strange debris" on the runway. Investigators frantically searched the runway, looking for heaping piles of gasoline-soaked rags or possibly raw forms of nitroglycerene, but found nothing but a weathered Furby and two empty bags of airline peanuts. Lettich was nowhere to be seen after the search.

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