(KE801, KAL801) crashed on
August 6 ,
1997 on approach to
Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport ,
Guam .
The . It carried 2 pilots, 1 flight engineer, 14 flight attendants, and 237 passengers.
The flight 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 was attempting an instrument landing. However, air traffic control in Guam advised the crew that the
Glideslope Instrument Landing System (ILS) in runway 6L was out of service. Nevertheless, air traffic control cleared Flight 801 to land in runway 6L at around 1:40a.m. The crew noticed that the plane was descending very steeply, and noted several times that the airport "is not in sight". (Investigative sources later noted that neither the copilot nor the flight engineer spoke out boldly, as trained, to alert the captain or even to urge breaking off the landing.) At 1:42, the aircraft crashed into Nimitz Hill, about 3 miles (5 km) short of the runway, at an altitude of 660 feet (201 m). Of the 254 people on board, 228 were killed, most of them by the ensuing fire; only 23 passengers and 3 flight attendants survived.
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. 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 8 hours after impact.
The U.S.
National Transportation Safety Board investigation report stated that the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system had been deliberately modified and wouldn't detect the plane that close to the runway. The captain failed to brief his non-precision approach and prematurely descended to decision height. Contributing to the accident were the captain's fatigue, Korean Air's lack of flight crew training, as well as the intentional inhibition of the Guam ILS. The crew had been using an outdated flight map, which stated that the Minimum Safe Altitude for a landing plane was 1770 feet (540 m) as opposed to 2150 feet (656 m). Flight 801 had been maintaining 1870 feet (570 m) when it was waiting to land.
On
August 6 ,
2000 , the third anniversary of the crash, a black
Marble Obelisk was unveiled on the crash site as a memorial to the victims.
After the accident, the flight number for the route was changed to Flight 805.
