Korean Air incidents and accidents

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The article describes accidents and incidents on Korean Air and its predecessor companies Korean National Airlines and Korean Air Lines.

Contents

In the late 1990s, Korean Air was known for being "an industry pariah, notorious for fatal crashes" due to its extremely poor safety record as one of the world's most dangerous airlines. [1] [2] [3] [4] In 1999, Korea's President Kim Dae-jung described the airline's safety record as "an embarrassment to the nation" and chose Korean Air's smaller rival, Asiana, for a flight to the United States. [5]

Between 1970 and 1999, several fatal incidents occurred. Since 1970, 17 Korean Air aircraft have been written off in serious incidents and accidents with the loss of 700 lives. Two Korean Air aircraft were shot down by the Soviet Union, one operating as Korean Air Lines Flight 902 and the other as Korean Air Lines Flight 007. Korean Air's deadliest incident was Flight 007 which was shot down by the Soviet Union on September 1, 1983. All 269 people on board were killed, including a sitting U.S. Congressman, Larry McDonald. The last fatal passenger accident was the Korean Air Flight 801 crash in 1997, which killed 229 people. The last crew fatalities were in the crash of Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999. [6]

Safety has seemingly improved since as the airline made concerted efforts to improve standards which included bringing in outside consultants from Boeing and Delta Air Lines. [7] [8] In 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration upgraded Korea's air-safety rating while Korean Air passed an International Air Transport Association audit in 2005. [9] After the Flight 8509 accident, it would be 23 years until another Korean Air aircraft would be written off; Korean Air Flight 631 overshot the runway at Mactan–Cebu International Airport in October 2022. [10] [11]

Several academics interviewed by CNBC shared the belief that the hierarchical, linear nature of Korean social interactions could be a contributor to the airline's safety issues. [12]

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2010s

2020s

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References

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  2. Stanley, Bruce (9 January 2006). "Korean Air Bucks Tradition To Fix Problems". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 24 October 2022.
  3. See Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (2008), pp. 177–223 for a discussion of this turnaround in airline safety. Gladwell notes (p. 180) that the hull-loss rate for the airline was 4.79 per million departures, a full 17 times greater than United Airlines which at the same time had a loss rate of just 0.27 per million departures.
  4. Stanley, Bruce (9 January 2006). "Korean Air Bucks Tradition To Fix Problems". The Wall Street Journal . Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  5. Carley, William M.; Pasztor, Andy (7 July 1999). "Korean Air Tries to Fix A Dismal Safety Record". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 24 October 2022.
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  32. Lost in metric non-conversion
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