The airline said in a statement it had terminated the services of Captain Foong Chee Kong and First Officer Cyrano Latiff, but kept on First Officer Ng Kheng Leng.

Flight SQ006 slammed into construction equipment parked on a partially closed runway parallel to the one it was supposed to be on at Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek International Airport.

The October 2000 disaster was SIA's first deadly crash. The carrier faces several lawsuits in the United States seeking compensation.

A report by Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council in late April said pilot error and bad weather were the most probable causes. Singapore disputed some of the findings, saying operations at the airport were also to blame.

SIA spokesman Rick Clements told Reuters the terminations were in accordance with Foong and Latiff's terms of employment under which the carrier can let staff go by giving them three months' salary in lieu of a notice period.

He declined to elaborate on the reasons for the terminations or link them with the accident in Taiwan.

Two other SIA pilots have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into how one of the airline's planes hit two objects on a taxiway at Chiang Kai-shek on July 19.

PILOTS' GROUP SHOCKED

An industry source said the decision to let go of Foong and Latiff was taken some time ago but was put into effect only on Friday after the legal problems over the crash in Taiwan were settled.

SIA said it got confirmation on Wednesday that the High Prosecutor's office in Taipei had agreed to the prosecutor's recommendation that the two pilots be conditionally suspended for three years, perform 240 hours of community service in Singapore and not operate in Taipei for a year.

The prosecutor also decided that no charges would be laid against First Officer Ng.

Foong and Latiff were not immediately available for comment, but a spokesman for the Airline Pilots Association of Singapore said the terminations came as a "shock".

"They just found out this morning at nine o'clock. They went to SIA's office, as they had been going for a while for other briefings, and they thought it might be something to do with their relicensing," he said.

"All this time they have been acting in such a way so that the company's interests will not be compromised. As to why they are terminated, it confounds us."

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