In the final minute before Korean Airlines Flight 801 crashed on a hillside in Guam last Aug. 6, a mechanical voice in the cockpit gave the crew information that they were making a fatal mistake, according to data released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Why the crew didn’t change the jetliner’s path in response is a key question the board faces as it begins hearings into the crash that killed 228 of the 254 people aboard the Boeing 747. Some of the causes may be made clearer when a translated transcript of the cockpit voice recorder is released on Tuesday.
In the hundreds of pages of information released Monday, investigators also said that in the cockpit wreckage they had found the Guam approach plates–maps that tell the crew how to land–that clearly laid out how high the plane was supposed to be at each of several key points on the way to the runway.
According to altitude rules in the approach charts, at the spot where the plane hit ground and left a third-of-a-mile swathe through the trees, sword-grass and mud, it should have begun a descent from 1,440 feet above sea level to 560 feet; it clipped its first tree limb at about 660 feet above sea level.
The data also suggests that at the very last moments of the flight, the crew may have been trying to add power and pull the nose up.
An analysis of the jet’s path and the surrounding terrain shows that if the plane had been just a little closer to the runway or a little higher it would have had a much better chance of recovery.
