Korean Air Lines Flight 015

Korean Air Lines Flight 015

A KAL Boeing 747 similar to the aircraft involved in the accident
Accident
Date	November 19, 1980 (1980-11-19)
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error and poor visibility
Site	AIS ,
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 747-2B5B
Operator	Korean Air Lines
Call sign	KOREAN AIR 015
Registration	HL7445
Flight origin	Los Angeles International Airport, California, United States
Stopover	Anchorage International Airport, Alaska, United States
Destination	Gimpo International Airport, Gimpo, South Korea
Occupants	226
Passengers	206
Crew	20
Fatalities	15
Injuries	5
Survivors	211

Korean Air Lines Flight 015 was a Boeing 747-200 operating a scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California, to Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, South Korea with an intermediate stop in . Albuquerque,New Mexico , that crashed while attempting to land on 19 November 1980. Of the 226 passengers and crew on board, 15 were killed in the accident. ^[1] The aircraft was damaged beyond repair flowchart TD

   NM["New Mexico
Plane Crashes"]

   NM --> Commercial    NM --> Military    NM --> General["General Aviation"]

   subgraph Commercial["Commercial Airline Crashes"]        C1["TWA Flight 260
1955 - Sandia Mts.
16 Fatalities"]        C2["Korean Air Flight 015
1980 - Albuquerque
0 Fatalities / 212 Survived"]        C3["America West Flight 556
2002 - Albuquerque
0 Fatalities"]    end

   subgraph Military["Military Crashes"]        M1["USAF B-52 Crash
1963 - Near Las Vegas, NM
5 Fatalities / Nuclear Weapons Onboard"]        M2["USAF C-130 Crash
2017 - Near Clovis
9 Fatalities"]        M3["USAF C-124 Crash
1951 - Kirtland AFB
15 Fatalities"]    end

   General --> G1["1951 DC-3 Crash
Sandia Mountains / 10 Fatalities"]    General --> G2["1975 Santa Fe Crash
13 Fatalities"]    General --> G3["2020 B-29 'Doc' Incident
Roswell / 0 Fatalities"]

Background

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Boeing 747-2B5B that was less than a year old. It was registered as HL7445 with four Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7Q. The MSN of the aircraft was 21773/366. ^[2]

Accident

The wind was calm with a visibility of 1,000 m in fog as the Korean Air Lines 747 made its approach to Runway 14 at Albuquerque International Sunport. ^[3] The pilot reported trouble with the controls ^[4] shortly before the aircraft touched down 90 metres short of the threshold and contacted an embankment slope. The aircraft's cargo compartment was ruptured after the main landing gear were pushed into it. Flight 015 slid down the runway on its belly and a fire broke out. The aircraft was evacuated but six crew and nine passengers were killed in the accident and four passengers had serious injuries. ^{[2] [3]}

Cause

Crashed short of runway due to crew error in low visibility weather, complicated by the crew's difficulty to control the aircraft.

References

1. "Korean Air Flight 015". Airdisaster.com. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
2. "Accident Boeing 747-2B5B HL7445, Wednesday 19 November 1980". Aviation Safety Network . Flight Safety Foundation.
3. UK CAA Document CAA 429 World Airline Accident Summary (ICAO Summary 1/82).
4. "12 die as jet crash-lands in Korea". The Day . Seoul, South Korea. The Associated Press. 19 November 1980. p. 12 – via Google News Archive.