Survivors 0 Registration HL7604 Operator Asiana Airlines Survivor 0 | Aircraft type Boeing 747-400F Date 28 July 2011 Total fatalities 2 (all) Crew count 2 | |
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Summary Impacted sea following in-flight uncontained cargo fire Similar Asiana Airlines Flight 733, Iran Air Flight 277, Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, Asiana Airlines Flight 162, Korean Air Flight 85 | ||
Asiana Airlines Cargo Flight 991 (OZ991, AAR991) was a cargo flight which crashed into the Korea Strait on 28 July 2011. The two crew members aboard died. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 747-400F freighter, was operating Asiana Airlines' scheduled international cargo service from Incheon International Airport, South Korea to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, China. The crash occurred off the coast of Jeju Island after the crew reported a fire in the cargo compartment and had been attempting to divert to Jeju International Airport.
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Aircraft
The aircraft that was involved in the accident was a Boeing 747-48EF, registered HL7604, which was built in 2006. The aircraft had flown more than 29000 flight hours over about 5000 cycles and was powered by four General Electric CF6-80C3 engines.
Crash
Asiana Flight 991 departed Incheon International Airport at 16:47 UTC on 27 July 2011 (2:47 AM on 28 July 2011 local time), bound for Shanghai Pudong International Airport. At 4:03 AM, the crew reported a fire and diverted to Jeju Airport for an emergency landing. Radio contact was lost with the aircraft at 4:11AM when it is believed the aircraft crashed 107 kilometers (66 mi) South-West of Jeju Island.
The captain of the flight was 52-year-old Choi Sang-gi while the first officer was 44-year-old Lee Jeong-woong; together, the two had over 19,000 hours of flight time.
The flight to Shanghai was loaded with 58 tonnes (57 long tons; 64 short tons) of cargo; 90% of the freight was standard cargo, semi-conductors, mobile phones, liquid crystal displays, and light-emitting diodes. The remainder included 400 kg (880 lb) of lithium batteries, paint, resin solutions and other liquids.
Aftermath
Search and rescue operations conducted by the Republic of Korea Coast Guard recovered parts of the aircraft within a day of the crash, but had not located the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR). The search effort involved a total of ten ships from the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Administration, as well as three helicopters. Nippon Salvage Company of Japan was contracted to provide assistance during the search. The South Korean government also requested the assistance of Singapore and the U.S. Navy in searching for the FDR and CVR. The search was briefly halted on 3 August due to an approaching typhoon, and resumed by 5 August.
On 17 August 2011, the search team identified the location of 39 parts of the aircraft, including the tail section which was expected to contain the FDR and CVR. The wreckage of the aircraft was reached in late October 2011, and the bodies of the two crewmembers were recovered on 29 October. The investigation eventually revealed extensive fire damage in the hold, including underneath the cockpit, and that the aircraft crashed 18 minutes after the fire was first detected.
According to Asiana, the crash of Flight 991 led to damages to the airline of about $190 million U.S. (200.4 billion won). In 2012, the International Civil Aviation Organization considered applying new safety standards to air carriage of lithium batteries as a result of this crash and the crash of UPS Airlines Flight 6 in Dubai after a fire.
The Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) determined that a fire developed on or near the pallets containing dangerous goods but no physical evidence of the cause of the fire was found. The fire rapidly escalated into a large uncontained fire, and this caused some portions of the fuselage to separate from the aircraft in midair, thereby resulting in the crash.