Description

On 6 August 1997, Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashed at night at Nimitz Hill, 3 miles southwest of Won Guam International Airport, Agana, Guam while on final approach for runway 6 Left. Of the 254 persons on board, 228 were killed, and 23 passengers and 3 flight attendants survived the accident with serious injuries.

Flight 801 took off from Kimpo International Airport, Seoul, Korea at about 2153 Guam LT. The captain was the pilot flying and the first officer was performing the pilot monitoring duties. Upon arrival to the Guam area the crew was cleared to descent from FL410 to two thousand six hundred feet at own discretion.

During the approach the captain made several statements about the working time calculation and payment and that “they make us work to maximum, up to maximum...”

At about 01:24:30 the first officer requested deviation due to weather and was cleared to avoid with left turn. Six minutes later the crew requested radar vectors for runway 06 left. After initial vectoring at heading 120, the controller stated: “Korean Air eight zero one cleared for ILS runway six left approach…glideslope unusable.” The first officer responded: “Korean eight zero one roger…cleared Instrument Landing System (ILS) runway six left.”; he did not acknowledge that the glideslope was unusable.

According to the CVR, at about 01:39:55 the flight engineer asked, “is the glideslope working? glideslope? yeh?” One second later, the captain responded, “yes, yes, it’s working.”