Date: 08/06/1997
Location: Agana, Guam
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 747-300
Registration: HL-7468
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 228:254
Details: The aircraft crashed into Nimitz Hill, 3 miles short of Runway 06R, while making a non-precision approach in heavy rain to A.B. Won Guam International Airport. The runway glide slope system was inoperative. In addition, the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning system (MSAW) was also not working due to a software problem. 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 (FAA) intentional inhibition of the minimum safe altitude warning system (MSAW) at Guam and the agency's failure to adequately manage the system.
Date: 08/10/1994
Location: Cheju, South Korea
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Airbus A300-600R B4
Registration: HL-7296
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 0:160
Details: The aircraft overran the runway and caught fire while landing during adverse weather conditions. The approach was flown with slats/flaps at 15/20 degrees due to suspected windshear. Crew error. There was a struggle and argument between the captain and copilot during the last seconds of the landing as to whether they should go-around.
Date: 11/25/1989
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Fokker F-28 Fellowship 4000
Registration: HL-7255
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 1:52
Details: The plane crashed during takeoff after losing the left engine, directional control and overrunning the runway and catching fire.
Date: 07/27/1989
Location: Tripoli, Libya
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
Registration: HL-7328
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 75:200 +6
Details: The aircraft crashed short of the runway while landing in fog. Failure of the captain to land without analyzing the weather data.
Date: 11/29/1987
Location: Andaman Sea
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 707-300C
Registration: HL-7406
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 115:115
Details: The plane crashed while on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok. Detonation of an explosive device in the passenger cabin left by two passengers who exited the plane at Abu Dhabi. A 75 year old man and Korean woman were arrested as they tried to use fake passports to fly to Rome. While under guard, the man bit into a cyanide capsule and died. The woman, a North Korean agent, confessed to the crime.
Date: 09/01/1983
Location: Sakhalin Island, Russia
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 747-200B
Registration: HL-7442
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 269:269
Details: On a flight from Alaska to South Korea, the airliner drifted off course and twice penetrated Soviet airspace. During the second penetration, the airliner was shot down by a Russian Su-15 Air Force fighter with air-to-air missiles. The aircraft crashed into international waters in the Sea of Japan. U.S. Representative from Georgia Lawrence McDonald killed.
Date: 04/20/1978
Location: Murmansk, Russia, USSR
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 707-300B
Registration: HL-7429
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 2:109
Details: The aircraft, which deviated off course, suffered rapid decompression after being fired upon by a Russian fighter. The aircraft made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.
Date: 01/23/1971
Location: Sokcho, South Korea
Airline: Korean Airlines
Aircraft: Fokker F-27 Friendship 500
Registration: HL-5212
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 2:60
Details: Crash landed on a beach after a hijacker detonated grenades he was carrying. The hijacker and the co-pilot were killed by the grenade explosions.
Add the two freighter crashes in 1999,(Stanstead and Shanghi), the 744 hull loss in Seoul. 8/98, landing, MD88 hull loss, Miho, 1998/9, 747-200 hull loss in 11/80, Seoul landing accident, DC-10 freighter crash in Anchorage in 1980 (?). Of 33 worldwide 747 hull losses, 5 are KAL’s; 15%. This includes 11 losses attritutable to military action, hijackings and the the Tennerife accident. Pilot error only crashes, and KAL accounts for about one quarter of the world’s 747 hull losses. Hummmmmm.