Page:KAL801Finalreport.pdf/15

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On August 6, 1997, about 0142:26 Guam local time, Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-3B5B (747-300), Korean registration HL7468, operated by Korean Air Company, Ltd., crashed at Nimitz Hill, Guam. Flight 801 departed from Kimpo International Airport, Seoul, Korea, with 2 pilots, 1 flight engineer, 14 flight attendants, and 237 passengers on board. The airplane had been cleared to land on runway 6 Left at A.B. Won Guam International Airport, Agana, Guam, and crashed into high terrain about 3 miles southwest of the airport. Of the 254 persons on board, 228 were killed,, and 23 passengers and 3 flight attendants survived the accident with serious injuries. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. Flight 801 was operating in U.S. airspace as a regularly scheduled international passenger service flight under the Convention on International Civil Aviation and the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 129 and was on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan.

According to Korean Air company records, the flight crew arrived at the dispatch center in the Korean Air headquarters building in Seoul about 2 hours before the scheduled departure time of 2105 (2005 Seoul local time) on August 5, 1997. The original flight plan for flight 801 listed a different captain's name. The captain aboard the accident flight had initially been scheduled to fly to Dubai, United Arab Emirates; however, because the accident captain did not have adequate rest for that trip, he was reassigned the shorter trip to Guam.

According to Korean Air personnel, the flight crewmembers collected the trip paperwork, conducted a self-briefing, and received a briefing from the assigned supervisor of flying (SOF). Flight 801 departed the gate about 2127 and was airborne about 2153.