Korean Air Flight 801

Korean Air Flight 801

The aircraft involved in the incident, HL7468 at Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan.
Occurrence summary
Date August 6, 1997
Summary Insufficient pilot training, CFIT, Pilot error
Site
13°27.35′N 144°43.92′E / 13.45583°N 144.73200°E / 13.45583; 144.73200Coordinates: 13°27.35′N 144°43.92′E / 13.45583°N 144.73200°E / 13.45583; 144.73200
Passengers 237
Crew 17
Fatalities 228
Injuries (non-fatal) 25
Survivors 26
Aircraft type Boeing 747-3B5
Operator Korean Air
Registration HL7468
Flight origin Gimpo International Airport
Destination Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport

Korean Air Flight 801 (KE801, KAL801) crashed on August 6, 1997, on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport, in the United States territory of Guam, killing 228 of the 254 people aboard.

Flight 801 was normally flown by an Airbus A300; since Korean Air had scheduled the August 5–6 flight to transport Guamanian athletes to the South Pacific Mini Games in American Samoa,[1] the airline designated HL7468, a 12-year-old Boeing 747-300 delivered to Korean Air on December 12, 1984,[2] to fly the route that night.[1][3] The aircraft crashed on Nimitz Hill in Asan, Guam, while on approach to the airport.[4]

Disaster

Animation of Flight 801 descent

Flight 801 departed from Seoul-Kimpo International Airport (now Gimpo Airport) at 8:53 p.m. (9:53 p.m. Guam time) on August 5 on its way to Guam. It carried two pilots, a flight engineer, 14 flight attendants, and 237 passengers,[5] a total of 254 people. Of the passengers, three were children between the ages of 2 and 12 and three were 24 months old or younger.[6] Six of the passengers were Korean Air flight attendants who were deadheading.[7]

The flight was under the command of 42-year-old Captain Park Yong-chul (Korean: 박용철, Hanja: 朴鏞喆, RR: Bak Yong-cheol. M-R: Pak Yongch'ŏl)[8] The captain had close to 9,000 hours of flight time and had recently received a Flight Safety Award for negotiating a 747 engine failure at low altitude.[9] Park had originally been scheduled to fly to Dubai, United Arab Emirates; since he did not have enough rest for the Dubai trip, he was reassigned to Flight 801.[7] The first officer was 40-year-old Song Kyung-ho (Korean: 송경호, RR: Song Gyeong-ho, M-R: Song Kyŏngho), who had more than 4,000 hours' flying experience, and the flight engineer was 57-year-old Nam Suk-hoon (Korean: 남석훈, RR: Nam Seok-hun, M-R: Nam Sŏkhun),[10] a veteran pilot with more than 13,000 flight hours.

Animation of last 64 seconds of flight

The flight experienced some turbulence but was uneventful until shortly after 1:00 a.m. on August 6, as the jet was preparing to land. There was heavy rain at Guam so visibility was significantly reduced and the crew attempted an instrument landing. The glideslope Instrument Landing System (ILS) in runway 6L was out of service; however, the captain believed it was in service and at 1:35 am managed to pick up a signal which was later identified to be from an irrelevant electronics device on the ground. The crew noticed that the aircraft was descending very steeply, and noted several times that the airport "is not in sight." Despite protests from the flight engineer that the detected signal was not the glide-slope indicator, the captain pressed on[11] and at 1:42 am, the aircraft flew into Nimitz Hill, about 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) short of the runway, at an altitude of 660 feet (200 m).

Of the 254 people on board, 228 died as a result of the crash. One survivor, 36-year-old Hyun Seong Hong (홍현성, also spelled Hong Hyun Sung) of the United States, occupied Seat 3B in first class, and said that the crash occurred so quickly that the passengers "had no time to scream"[12] and likened the crash to "a scene from a film."[13]

Wreckage of HL7468 burns at the Sasa Valley crash site.

The rescue effort was hampered by the weather, terrain, and other problems. Emergency vehicles could not approach due to a fuel pipeline destroyed by the crash and blocking the narrow road. United States Navy Seabees of NMCB133 were some of the first on the scene as they utilized their earth moving equipment to clear roadways and timber from the crash site approach. The Seabees used backhoes to crack open the still-burning plane to rescue survivors and erected mortuary tents for first responders. There was confusion over the administration of the effort; the crash occurred on land owned by the United States Navy but civil authorities initially claimed authority. The hull had disintegrated, and jet fuel in the wing tanks had sparked a fire which was still burning eight hours after impact.

Rika Matsuda

Governor Carl T.C. Gutierrez found 11-year-old Rika Matsuda, a South Korean citizen from Japan who boarded the flight with her mother, 44-year-old Cho Sung-yeo (also known as Shigeko[14][15]). Rika Matsuda described what happened to her and her mother to interpreters.[12] Cho could not free herself from the aircraft and told Rika to run away. Luggage piled on the girl and her mother as the crash occurred; Rika Matsuda said her mother, unable to free herself, asked her to leave.[12] Cho died in the fire. After escaping from the aircraft, Rika discovered a surviving flight attendant, Lee Yong Ho (이용호). They stayed together until Gutierrez discovered them.[16] Rika Matsuda, treated at Guam Memorial Hospital in Tamuning, was released on August 7, 1997. The girl and her father, Tatsuo Matsuda, were escorted to the Governor House where they were the guests of Gutierrez and the First Lady of Guam, Geri Gutierrez, for several days; afterwards Rika and Tatsuo Matsuda flew to Japan.[4][17]

Investigation and probable cause

A special weather observation made at 01:47 three minutes after the impact reported:

Wind variable at 4 knots; visibility—5 miles; present weather—light rain shower; sky condition—few 1,500 feet, scattered 2,500 feet, overcast 4,000 feet; temperature 26° C; dew point 24° C; altimeter 29.85 inches Hg.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation report stated that a contributing factor was that the ATC Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system at Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport had been deliberately modified so as to limit spurious alarms and could not detect an approaching aircraft that was below minimum safe altitude.[18] The probable cause of the accident was the captain's poor execution of the non-precision approach,[18] the captain's fatigue, poor communication between the flight crew, and Korean Air's lack of flight crew training.[18] The crew had been using an outdated flight map which was missing a 724 foot obstruction symbol depicted at the NIMITZ VOR and that map stated the Minimum Safe Altitude while crossing the NIMITZ VOR for a landing aircraft was 1,300 feet (400 m) as opposed to the updated altitude of 1,440 feet (440 m).[19] Flight 801 crashed near the NIMITZ VOR which is situated on Nimitz Hill at a height of 680 feet (210 m) at 1:42 am, when it descended below the minimum safe altitude of 1,440 feet (440 m) during its landing approach.

The NTSB presented its findings on March 24, 25, and 26, 1998 in the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu.[20][21][22]

The section of the report entitled "Probable Cause" concluded:[23]

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s failure to adequately brief and execute the non-precision approach and the first officer’s and flight engineer’s failure to effectively monitor and cross-check the captain’s execution of the approach. Contributing to these failures were the captain’s fatigue and Korean Air’s inadequate flight crew training. Contributing to the accident was the Federal Aviation Administration’s intentional inhibition of the minimum safe altitude warning system at Guam and the agency’s failure to adequately manage the system.

Passengers

Locations of the survivors (Greyscale version for colorblind persons)

Many of the passengers were vacationers and honeymooners flying to Guam.[14][24]

11-year old Rika Matsuda, a South Korean passport holder, was described as Japanese in many press reports.[14] One South Korean was an expatriate who lived in Guam,[12] while New Zealander Barry Small worked in Guam.[9]

Deaths and injuries

NationalityPassengersCrewTotal
TotalKilledTotalKilledTotalKilled
 South Korea2181991714235213
 New Zealand100010
 United States1310001310
 Japan540054
Total2372141714254228

Of the 254 people on board, 223 - 209 passengers and 14 crew members (3 flight crew and 11 cabin crew) - were killed at the crash site.[6]

Of the 31 occupants found alive by rescue crews, two died en route to the hospital and a further three in hospital.[6][7] Among the survivors, 16 received burn injuries. The 26 survivors were initially treated at Guam Memorial Hospital (GMH) in Tamuning or at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Agana Heights. Four were subsequently transferred to the U.S. Army Burn Center in San Antonio, Texas.[4][25] and eight to University Hospital in Seoul.[4][7][26][27][28][29][30]

There were 23 passengers and three flight attendants who survived the crash with serious injuries.[6][31]

Notable passengers

Shin Ki-ha, a four-term South Korean parliamentarian and former leader of the National Congress for New Politics, traveled with his wife and around 20 party members. Shin and his wife were killed.[32][33]

Identification and repatriation of bodies

On August 13, 1997, 12 sets of remains were brought to Guam's airport to be readied to be flown back to Seoul. Clifford Guzman, a governor's aide, said that two of the 12 were taken back to the morgue. Of the 10, one was misidentified and had to be switched before takeoff. The 10 bodies transported to Seoul were of seven passengers and three female flight attendants. On the same date, an NTSB family affairs official named Matthew Furman said that in total, by that date, 46 bodies had been identified.[34]

After the crash

Korean Air Flight 801 Memorial in Asan, Guam

After the crash occurred, the airline provided several flights for around 300 relatives so that they could go to the crash site.[35]

On August 13, 1997, 50 protesters staged at a sit-in at Guam Airport, saying that the recovery of the dead was taking too long; they sat on blankets and sheets of paper at the Korean Air counter.[34]

Legacy

On August 5, 1998, the first anniversary of the crash, a black marble obelisk was unveiled on the crash site as a memorial to the victims.

After the accident, Korean Air services to Guam were suspended for more than four years, leading to reduced tourist spending in Guam and reduced revenues for Korean Air.[36] When Seoul-Guam services resumed in December 2001,[37] the flight number was changed to 805. The flight number for its Seoul-Guam route is now 111 and operates out of Incheon instead of Gimpo, using a Boeing 777-300 or an Airbus A330.

In 2000, a lawsuit was settled in the amount of $70,000,000 United States dollars on behalf of 54 families.[38]

New Zealander Barry Small, a helicopter pilot and a survivor of the accident, lobbied for safer storage of duty-free alcohol and redesigns of crossbars on airline seats; he said that the storage of duty-free alcohol on Flight 801 contributed to spreading of the fire and the crossbars injured passengers to the point where they could not escape from the aircraft.[9][39][40]

The Government of Guam moved its website about the Korean Air crash after the Spamcop program alerted the government that advance fee fraud spam from Nigeria used the website link as a part of the scam.[41] Scam e-mails used names of passengers, such as Sean Burke, as part of the fraud.[42]

Following the Korean Air 801 crash, it was brought to the NTSB's attention that foreign carriers flying in and out of the US were not covered by the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996 and Korean Air did not have a plan to deal with the situation they encountered. As a result, US Congress passed the Foreign Air Carrier Family Support Act of 1997 to require those carriers to file family assistance plans and fulfill the same family support requirements as domestic airlines. Not only does the Act ensure that all victims and family members will be treated equitably, regardless of the carrier they use, it also impels many carriers that may not have thought about family assistance issues to give them due consideration in their emergency response plans.[43]

In popular culture

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Transcripts Between Guam Airport Tower and KA801 before Crash." Government of Guam. Retrieved on August 30, 2010.
  2. ↑ NTSB Report, pp.16, 28
  3. ↑ "Official Guam Crash Site Center - Korean Air Flt 801," Government of Guam
  4. 1 2 3 4 http://ns.gov.gu/guam/indexmain.html
  5. ↑ NTSB Report, pp. 11, 23
  6. 1 2 3 4 NTSB Report, pp.45, 57
  7. 1 2 3 4 NTSB Report, pp.3, 15
  8. ↑ "Two Systems Down in KAL 801 Crash," Honolulu Star-Bulletin
  9. 1 2 3 "Final Approach." Mayday.
  10. ↑ "DOCKET NO.: SA-517 EXHIBIT NO. 2F." NTSB
  11. ↑ In Asiana Crash Investigation, Early Focus Is on the Crew’s Actions The New York Times July 8, 2013
  12. 1 2 3 4 Pollack, Andrew. "Pilot Error Is Suspected in Crash on Guam," The New York Times. August 8, 1997. Retrieved on October 25, 2010.
  13. ↑ Anger and tears as Guam crash families beg to see dead, The Independent
  14. 1 2 3 "Honeymoon flight that ended in horror." The Independent. Thursday August 7, 1997. Retrieved on August 30, 2010.
  15. ↑ "Jet hell Rika's scars will last forever.," Daily Record
  16. ↑ "Korean Air Survivor - Rika's Miracle," Government of Guam
  17. ↑ "Korean Air Survivor - Rika's Miracle." Government of Guam. Retrieved on February 13, 2009.
  18. 1 2 3 NTSB final report, section 3.2 "Probable cause," page 175
  19. ↑ NTSB final report, Table 2, page 36
  20. ↑ "PUBLIC HEARING IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTIGATION OF AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT KOREAN AIR FLIGHT 801, B-747-300 AGANA, GUAM AUGUST 6, 1997." National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved on June 29, 2011.
  21. ↑ "PUBLIC HEARING IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTIGATION OF AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT KOREAN AIR FLIGHT 801, B-747-300 AGANA, GUAM AUGUST 6, 1997." National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved on June 29, 2011.
  22. ↑ "THE INVESTIGATION OF KOREAN AIR FLIGHT 801, B-747-300, AGANA, GUAM AUGUST 6, 1997." National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved on June 29, 2011.
  23. ↑ "CONTROLLED FLIGHT INTO TERRAIN KOREAN AIR FLIGHT 801 BOEING 747-300, HL7468 NIMITZ HILL, GUAM AUGUST 6, 1997" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board, Washington D.C. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  24. ↑ "List of passengers aboard Korean Air Flight 801." CNN. August 6, 1997. Retrieved on August 30, 2010.
  25. ↑ "Airplane Crash in Guam, August 6, 1997: The Aeromedical Evacuation Response."
  26. ↑ "One Crash Victim Dies, Three Cling to Life at Burn Center." U.S. Department of Defense.
  27. ↑ Wiechmann, Lori. "Last member of Atlanta family on downed Korean jet dies." Athens Daily News. August 12, 1997. Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
  28. ↑ "Daily Briefing." The Seattle Times. Tuesday September 2, 1997. Corrected on September 8, 1997. "Two more people who initially survived last month's crash of a Korean Air jumbo jet in Guam have died, bringing the death toll to 228, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman said today. Korean flight attendant Han Kyu-hee died on Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. Another South Korean, Jung Young-hak, a passenger, died on Sunday in the same facility."
  29. ↑ Gillert, Douglas J. "One Crash Victim Dies, Three Cling to Life at Burn Center." U.S. Department of Defense. Retrieved on June 30, 2011. "The other victims brought here were Se Jin Ju, 28; Kyu Hee Han, 29; and Young Hak Jung, 39, all South Korean citizens. Along with Chung, they were the most severely burned survivors and needed the kind of treatment the Brooke Army Medical Center burn unit here provides."
  30. ↑ "Safety Recommendation Date: January 27, 2000 In reply refer to: A-00-19 and -20." National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved on June 30, 2011. " A passenger with serious injuries died at the U.S. Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on October 10, 1997, but is not officially listed as a fatality because the passenger’s death occurred more than 30 days after the accident"
  31. ↑ (Pg. 11, 23 of 226)
  32. ↑ http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/05/guam.late/
  33. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E1DC173CF934A3575BC0A961958260
  34. 1 2 "Guam Crash Aftermath Upsets Kin." The Seattle Times. August 13, 1997.
  35. ↑ Coleman, Joe. "Survivors recount the fiery last moments." The Associated Press at the Savannah Morning News. Thursday August 7, 1997. 10A. Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
  36. ↑ "Specifics of Crash Site Information." Guam Government. Retrieved on December 9, 2008.
  37. ↑ "Korean Air resumes service to Guam for the first time in 4 years." Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Friday December 28, 2001. Retrieved on April 29, 2009.
  38. ↑ Current Cases & Our Successes - A Professional Corporation
  39. ↑ "Final Approach - Korean Air 801." Discovery Channel. Retrieved on June 26, 2009.
  40. ↑ "Exhibit 16C - Korean Air Flight 801." National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved on June 26, 2009.
  41. ↑ "This webpage has been cancelled." [sic] Government of Guam. Retrieved on April 29, 2009.
  42. ↑ Larson, Aaron. "False Promises of Inheritance - Spam Email Fraud." Law Offices of Aaron Larson at ExpertLaw. July 2004. Retrieved on May 13, 2009.
  43. ↑ http://www.ntsb.gov/news/speeches/JimHall/Pages/Remarks_before_the_International_Symposium_on_Family_Victim_Assistance_for_Transportation_Disasters_Arlington_Virginia.aspx
  44. ↑ Outliers ch 7, The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, pp 209-223

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

External image
Photos of HL7468 at Airliners.net
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