By Edward Harris
Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 26, 2002; 3:36 AM

SINGAPORE –– Two pilots involved in a deadly Singapore Airlines crash at Taipei's international airport have been fired, the company said Friday.

The Oct. 31, 2000 crash at Taiwan's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport occurred when one of the carrier's jumbo jets took a wrong turn down a closed runway, plowing through construction equipment. The crash killed 83 people.

Three pilots of the Los Angeles-bound flight had their flying privileges immediately suspended and a long, sometimes contentious, investigation was launched by Taiwanese and Singaporean authorities.

Two of the three pilots of Flight SQ006, Capt. Foong Chee Kong and First Officer Cyrano Latiff, were fired, according to a company news release.

A third pilot, First Officer Ng Kheng Lang, remains employed by the company but has been grounded, said Singapore Airlines spokesman Rick Clements.

by pilot errors exacerbated by bad weather from an approaching typhoon.

The investigators said the pilots could have prevented the accident if they had used airport navigation charts or requested taxi assistance.

A Singapore-led investigation into the crash laid more of the blame on the Taiwanese airport, saying the runways weren't properly marked.

This week, the company said it received notification from the High Prosecutor's office in Taipei that charges filed against Foong and Latiff will be suspended on the condition that the pilots perform community service and refrain from flying to Taiwan for a year.

map of accident taxi-route