Air China Flight 129

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Air China Flight 129

An Air China 767-200 similar to B-2552
Accident summary
Date	April 15, 2002 (2002-04-15)
Type	Controlled flight into terrain due to ATC error and pilot error
Site	Busan, South Korea Coordinates: 35°13′58″N 128°55′41″E / 35.2327°N 128.9280°E / 35.2327; 128.9280[1]
Passengers	155
Crew	11
Fatalities	129
Survivors	37
Aircraft type	Boeing 767-200ER
Operator	Air China
Tail number	B-2552
Flight origin	Beijing International Airport
Destination	Gimhae International Airport

Air China Flight 129 (CCA129, CA129) was a flight from Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, People's Republic of China to Gimhae International Airport, Busan, South Korea. On April 15, 2002, the jet on this route crashed into a hill near Busan, killing 129 of 166 on board. This crash is currently recorded as the deadliest aviation accident in South Korea.

Contents 1 Disaster 2 Aircraft 3 Crew members 4 Passengers 5 Weather 6 Accident report 7 Flight number still in use 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Disaster

The Boeing 767-200 took off at 0837 local time (0037 UTC). After nearly 2 hours in flight, it arrived near Gimhae airport in light rain and mist. At 1120 local time (0220UTC), CA129 received clearance to land at runway 36L from Gimhae tower, but the aircraft circled the runway again after a missed approach due to low visibility. After an attempt to circle-to-land on runway 18R (the same runway from the opposite direction), the crew concentrated too much^{[citation needed]} on the weather and ATC communications while going below the Minimum Safety Altitude (MSA), and crashed into a hill at 1140 local time (0240UTC). The aircraft broke into parts and caught fire. 37 survived including the captain.

[edit] Aircraft

• Model: Boeing 767-2J6/ER
• Registration: B-2552
• Previous Registrations: N60659
• MSN/CN: 23308/127
• Engine: Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4E4

The aircraft, delivered in 1985, was Line No. 127. It had accumulated around 39,541 hours of flying and 14,308 landings.^[2]

[edit] Crew members

• Flight Crew:
  • Captain: Wu Xinlu (吴新禄), 6000 hours on Boeing 767, 5 times to Busan, received captain's license on 23 November, 2001;
  • First Officer: Gao Lijie (高立杰)(He was a member of CFSO);
  • First Officer: Hou Xiangning (侯向宁);
• Flight Attendants:
  • Ye Hongxia (叶红霞), Wang Ze (王泽), Zhang Wanhua (张婉华)、He Zhen (贺珍), Xu Liya (许丽雅), Du Dazheng (杜大正), Luo Rui (罗睿) and Sun Jiayue (孙嘉悦).

The captain and two of the flight attendants survived, while the copilots and the rest of the flight attendants died.^[3]

[edit] Passengers

Among the 155 passengers, 135 were from South Korea, 19 were from the People's Republic of China, and one was from Uzbekistan. Most of the passengers who died were South Korean. At least one man, a Korean, died in the hospital.^[4]

[edit] Weather

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Weather at the time of crash was poor.

The ATIS string for Busan Gimhae airport was: 0200Z Oscar 230/6KT Vis 2 mi RAFG 3/8-005 6/8-010 8/8-025 16/13 A3000 Active Rwy 36L Info 36R/18L used as twy end of Oscar.

[edit] Accident report

The official accident report was released in May 2005. The Probable Cause read:

1. The flight crew of flight 129 performed the circling approach, not being aware of the weather minima of wide-body aircraft (B767-200) for landing, and in the approach briefing, did not include the missed approach, etc., among the items specified in Air China’s operations and training manuals.
2. The flight crew exercised poor crew resource management and lost situational awareness during the circling approach to runway 18R, which led them to fly outside of the circling approach area, delaying the base turn, contrary to the captain’s intention to make a timely base turn.
3. The flight crew did not execute a missed approach when they lost sight of the runway during the circling approach to runway 18R, which led them to strike high terrain (mountain) near the airport.
4. When the first officer advised the captain to ascend again for landing, about 5 seconds before impact, the captain did not react, nor did the first officer initiate the missed approach himself.

During the accident flight the airline made the pre-flight safety demonstration and announcements in Chinese and English, but not in Korean, while 135 of 155 of the passengers were Korean. The Korean investigation board recommended that Air China begin announcements in Korean on flights to and from South Korea.^[5]

[edit] Flight number still in use

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Air China kept the flight route designator for its Beijing - Busan route after this incident. Two days after the accident, another 767 served as flight 129 and safely carried 106 passengers from Beijing to Busan, although the flight was delayed for 10 hours and 10 minutes due to bad weather. Although Air China runs a Boeing 767-200 and a Boeing 777-200 on this route now, the flight route designator remains flight 129.

[edit] See also

• Asiana Airlines Flight 733
• Korean Air Flight 801
• Air China
• Ground proximity warning system

[edit] References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (March 2009)

[edit] External links

• Air China Flight 129 Passenger Manifest
• South Korea's Kimhae Airport's Responsibilities
• Topic of "The 4.15 Air Disaster" on People's Daily (In Chinese)
• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
• Accident aircraft B-2552 photos on Airliners.net

v • d • e ← 2001 Aviation accidents and incidents in 2002 2003→ Tampa plane crash (January 5) — Lion Air Flight 386 (January 14) — Garuda Indonesia Flight 421 (January 16) — Shelkovskaya Mi-8 crash (January 27) — TAME Flight 120 (January 28) — Air China Flight 129 (April 15) — 2002 Pirelli Tower plane crash (April 18) — 2002 Jalandhar India MiG-21 crash (May 3) — EAS Airlines Flight 4226 (May 4) — May 7: China Northern Airlines Flight 6136 and EgyptAir Flight 843 — China Airlines Flight 611 (May 25) — Airtanker crash (June 17) — 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision and America West Flight 556 (July 1) — 2002 Bristow Helicopters Sikorsky S-76A crash (July 16) — Airtanker crash (July 18) — Sknyliv airshow disaster (July 27) — Khankala Mi-26 crash (August 16) — Luxair Flight 9642 (November 6) Bold indicates incidents resulting at least 50 deaths (current article is always in bold) Orange color indicates the deadliest incident in 2002

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