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Crew blamed for Pusan air crash
By Cao Desheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-05-09 22:09
Pilot error has been cited as the likely cause of the crash of an Air China
Boeing 767 three years ago near Pusan in the Republic of Korea (ROK), which
claimed 128 lives.
The crew mistook the severity of the weather conditions as they came into
land in heavy fog and rain and thus gave up lifting the aircraft again, a report
from the Korea Aviation-Accident Investigation Board (KAIB) concluded.
"The flight crew exercised poor crew resource management and lost situational
awareness during the circling approach to the runway," the report said.
"They did not execute a missed approach when they lost sight of the runway,
which led them to strike high terrain (a mountain) near the airport," it said.
The flight data recorder, crash-site searchers and mock flight tests by
experts were examined, leading the board of investigators concluded that a
mistake by the pilot caused the plane to crash. ROK accident officials were
joined by Chinese and American aviation experts during the three-year
investigation.
Chinese aviation officials who took part in the investigation say the
airport's air traffic controllers were also to blame.
Added in an appendix to the report are paragraphs stating that Gimhae
airport's automatic altitude warning system might have been contributing
factors.
Officials from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC)
have demanded this information be included in the main report.
The plane, carrying 153 passengers and 11 crew members, crashed into a hill
near Gimhae airport when it attempted to land on the airport. 25 passengers and
crew survived the crash in April 2002.
The plane continued flying low under driving rains before smashing into a
small hill near the airport, Channel NewsAsia quoted the report as saying.
"Investigations about the causes of the air accidents involve a lot of
complicated issues and experts have to find enough evidence before drawing a
conclusion," said the CAAC press official yesterday who prefers not to be named.
"So it takes time, maybe a few months, or two or three years or even longer
time," she added.
Meanwhile, probes into the causes of the air accident in Baotou of North
China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region are still going on, the official said.
The small CRJ-200 aircraft, supplied by Canadian-based Bombardier Aerospace,
crashed shortly after it took off from Baotou in December last year. All 47
passengers and six crew members aboard were killed in addition to two people on
the ground.
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