Boeing 747-300 H7468

Summary

On 6 August 1997 at about 09:42 local time, a Boeing 747-300 registered H7468 was involved in an accident near Nimitz Hill, United States. 254 people were on board and 228 died, 26 were seriously injured. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

6 August 1997 at 09:42

Classification

Accident

Location

Nimitz Hill, United States

Nearest airport

Agana International Airpo (KGUM)

Coordinates

Not recorded

Aircraft

Boeing 747-300

Registration

H7468

Category

Airplane

Engines

4

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 129: Foreign

Purpose of flight

Unknown

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Seoul → Agana

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

IMC

Light

Night/Dark

NTSB number

DCA97MA058

228 people died.

the captain's failure to adequately brief and execute the nonprecision 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 (FAA) intentional inhibition of the minimum safe altitude warning system (MSAW) at Guam and the agency's failure to adequately manage the system.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The Board's full report is available at http://www/ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm, AAR-00/01, PB00-910401. 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 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 Part 1239 and was on an instrument flight rules flight plan.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.