TAIWAN authorities have rejected a Singapore goverment request to allow the pilots of a crashed Singapore Airlines jet to return home, a report said today.

The pilots have been told they must remain in Taipei to help with the investigation into the October 31 crash in which 83 people died, the Straits Times said.

Singapore Communications and Information Minister Yeo Cheow Tong said the government would continue to do all it can to get the pilots home.

Malaysian captain Foong Chee Kong, and Singaporean co-pilots Latiff Cyrano and Ng Kheng Leng, faced no restriction in their movements while in Taiwan.

Their Boeing 747, with 179 people on board smashed into construction equipment while attempting to take off on a stormy night on a runway that had been closed for repairs.

Taiwan prosecutors have hinted the pilots may be charged with causing death by negligence if they are found to be at fault.

Singapore Airlines has accepted responsibility for the crash but has demanded to know how an experienced pilot came to put his plane on the wrong runway.