killing

[wowenglish1]

I have two questions.
1. I would like to know the subject of "kill".
The plane crashed, killing all 200 people aboard.

2. I wonder if which is correct.
a. The plane crashed, killing all 100 people aboard. = The plane crashed and killed all 100 people aboard.
b. The plane crashed, killing all 100 people aboard. = The plane crashed, which killed all 100 people aboard.

 

[philo2009]

The participial phrase here (killing...board) is technically known as a summative modifier，whose antecedent is the whole of the preceding main clause. Thus it is the fact of the plane's having crashed (and not, of course, the plane itself!) that killed the passengers.

It is semantically equivalent, therefore to your (2b), which expresses the same meaning using the sentential pronoun 'which'.

 

[Tdol]

At first sight, the second, may seem a more accurate description of what happened, but a case could be made for both of them- there would logically have been a delay of milliseconds between the crash and the first deaths, but of the two I do prefer the second.