Korean Air Flight 801 Crashes into Nimitz Hill on Guam

Korean Air Flight 801 (KE801, KAL801) crashed on August 6, 1997 on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport, Guam (a United States insular area).
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, the airline designated HL7468, a Boeing 747-300 delivered to Korean Air on December 12, 1984, to fly the route that night. The aircraft crashed on Nimitz Hill in Asan.

Accident

Flight 801 departed from Seoul-Kimpo International Airport (now Gimpo Airport) at 8:53 pm (9:53 pm Guam time) on August 5 on its way to Guam. It carried 2 pilots, 1 flight engineer, 14 flight attendants, and 237 passengers [11], a total of 254 people. Of the passengers, 3 were children between the ages of 2 and 12 and 3 were 24 months old or younger. Six of the passengers were Korean Air flight attendants who were "deadheading" (traveling off-duty).

The flight, headed by 42-year old Captain Park Yong-chul (Hangul: 박용철, RR: Bak Yong-cheol, M-R: Pak Yongch'ŏl)[14] 40-year old First Officer Song Kyung-ho (Hangul: 송경호, RR: Song Gyeong-ho, M-R: Song Kyŏngho) and 57-year old flight engineer Nam Suk-hoon (Hangul: 남석훈, RR: Nam Seok-hun, M-R: Nam Sŏkhun)[15], experienced some turbulence but was uneventful until shortly after 1:00am on August 6, as the jet was preparing to land. 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.Earlier Park won a flight safety award for negotiating a 747 engine failure.

There was heavy rain at Guam so visibility was significantly reduced and the crew was attempting an instrument landing. Air traffic control in Guam advised the crew that the glideslope Instrument Landing System (ILS) in runway 6L was out of service. Air traffic control cleared Flight 801 to land in runway 6L at around 1:40 am. The crew noticed...