Air Asiana OZ 991 crashes after reporting a fire

The Air Asiana 747 cargo plane that was bound for Pudong, China from Icheon International airport. After reporting a fire, the crew turned back to land at Jeju International airport. But crashed before they could reach the airport.


The aircraft left Icheon at 3:05am(18:05 GMT) and after turning back, went off radar at 4:12am (19:12 GMT). The wreckage was found 2 hours later by the South Korean Coast guard about 107km (66 miles) West of Jeju city.


“We only can say that an in-flight fire, which occurred in the plane’s freight cargo, could be the reason for the crash because the pilots told us about the fire right before they disappeared from the radar,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said. “But we can’t say how the fire occurred, though there were inflammable materials in the cargo. And also, we are not sure whether there was an explosion.”


The two pilots who died in the crash were: Capt. Choi Sang-gi, 52 who had 14,000 flying hours and had been flying with the airline since 1991, and Co pilot Lee Jeong-woong, 44 had been flying for the airline since 2007 and had 5,211 flying hours.

HL7604 the Boeing 747-48EF/SCD involved in the crash © Niki Kapsamunov on airliners.net

Sources: Joongang Daily
BBC News