Mayday (2013) s04e04 Episode Script
Missed Approach
VOICEOVER: The crew of a passenger jet search in vain for their airport.
Look carefully.
Rain is making it impossible to see.
- Not in sight.
Missed approach! - Go around! More than 200 passengers are on board.
(SCREAMS) As I turned around, a huge fireball came out.
(SCREAMS) Investigators search for clues.
Could a vital missing piece of equipment be responsible for the crash? I think the best way to describe that would have been irresponsible.
(SCREAMS) I know a lot of people could have walked off that plane that night.
Nothing will change my views on that.
Nimitz Hill, Guam.
Once the site of fierce American offensives during World War II.
For over 50 years, there's been peace here.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Now the hill is peaceful, invaded by hunters and the normal quiet is broken by the roar of jumbo jets as they fly overhead.
Every night, commercial pilots must fly over this tall rocky outcrop and land at Guam's Agana International Airport.
Flights come from airports all across Asia.
Just past midnight on August 6, 1997, Korean Airlines Flight 801 is on its way to Guam from Seoul, South Korea.
42-year-old Captain Park Yong-chul is at the controls.
A former Korean air force pilot, Park has been flying 747s for more than six years.
Just a few months ago, he received a flight safety award from the president of Korean Air for successfully handling a 747 engine failure at low altitude.
Park is supposed to be flying to the United Arab Emirates tonight but a scheduling change has put him in command of this shorter flight to Guam.
In the cabin, Korean, Japanese and Western tourists are heading for Guam's pristine beaches.
Guam is a US territory, run under US law.
The island is tiny - fewer than 600 square kilometres - but there's enough sand to keep people coming.
24-year-old Sean Burke and his girlfriend, Wendy Bunten, are planning to make the most of Guam's beaches.
They're flying in from San Diego for a vacation.
MAN: Sean and Wendy were going to Guam to do some scuba diving, reef diving, and at the same time they were going to visit her brother who was in the navy over there.
He was a navy doctor.
Flight 801 is taking Barry Small back to work.
He's returning to Guam from New Zealand for another 6-month contract as a helicopter pilot.
But he does it with a heavy heart.
The night before I left, my father had a heart attack .
.
and I had to CPR him until the ambulance arrived and decided to cancel the contract so I could, er, help him but he was insistent that, "You must carry on with your job.
" The flight is still a couple of hours from Guam when the calm evening is brutally interrupted.
Watch the speed.
There could be severe turbulence.
Make an announcement to have everyone in their seats with seatbelts on.
(OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking.
Even an experienced flyer like Barry Small is surprised.
BARRY: There was no lead-up to this turbulence.
Anybody that wasn't strapped down was going to be airborne, that's for sure.
The lockers were rattling and anything in those lockers was bound to break.
It was a horrendous shudder.
It's heavy turbulence .
.
but the crew ride it out.
Eventually, the flight returns to normal.
We're through it.
Let the passengers know.
(OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking.
We have cleared the turbulent area.
But it's left some of the passengers shaken.
Shh.
It's OK, Rika.
We'll be there soon.
Ma'am, if you don't mind, I'm going to move this duty-free up here for you.
The cabin crew cleans up .
.
and the passengers settle in for the rest of the trip.
BARRY: Because of that 12-hour stopover in Seoul and no change of clothes, it was getting rather uncomfortable in a tropical environment and I took my shoes off just to relax a little bit and feel more comfortable.
Captain Park and his crew begin looking ahead.
They know there's more unsettled weather coming.
Rain has been hitting Guam on and off all day.
In fact, August is the heart of the island's rainy season.
Small showers can pop up, making visibility unpredictable.
MAN: In that particular part of the world, they have what's called a 'top hat thunderstorm'.
That is a very small thunderstorm that builds up at all times of the day and it's very short-lived so it wouldn't hamper the pilot's ability to actually conduct the approach.
It's gonna just obscure his view for some period of time while they're transiting through it.
Just past 1:00 in the morning, Korean Air Flight 801 makes initial radio contact with Kurt Mayo, the radar controller at Guam's airport.
Guam centre, Korea 801 leaving level 410 for 2,600.
Korean Air 801, roger.
The crew aren't the only ones preparing to land.
After more than three hours of flying through the night, the passengers get ready for the airport.
BARRY: I saw the lights of Guam and I knew exactly where the aircraft was because I'd been there many times before.
(EQUIPMENT BEEPS RAPIDLY) Captain Park has navigated Nimitz Hill nine times before but this time, there's a major difference.
At airports around the world, pilots land with the help of a glideslope - an electronic system that helps planes safely touch down.
If pilots follow the directions given by the glideslope, it guides them to the foot of the runway.
The glideslope beacon at Guam Airport has been removed for extensive maintenance.
Without the airport transmitter, Park's glideslope indicator in the cockpit is useless.
Landing without a glideslope is rare but it does happen.
In Guam, the transmitter is scheduled to be out of service for more than two months.
But impaired navigation is only part of the problem.
Captain Park is fighting exhaustion.
They make us classic guys work to the maximum.
Probably this way, hotel expenses are saved on cabin crews and they maximise flight hours.
Really sleepy.
Now, as the plane approaches Guam, clouds and rain block their way.
Captain, Guam conditions no good.
It's raining a lot.
It's been several hours since Captain Park and his crew left Seoul.
Now the rain is making the late flight more difficult.
Tired and fighting the weather, the captain begins the final approach to the airport.
August 6, 1997.
It's close to 1:30 in the morning.
On Korean Airlines Flight 801, a tired captain is preparing to land at Agana Airport on the island of Guam.
In the cabin, 237 passengers are getting ready to begin their holidays or get back to work.
BARRY: The flight, other than the turbulence, was totally normal.
We had our meals and it was just a totally normal flight in every way.
As the jet approaches Guam, an erratic storm pushes rain and clouds between the plane and the airport.
It's hard to see.
The captain wants to make a small change in course to avoid the worst of the weather.
Request 20 mile deviation to the left as we are descending.
Guam Centre, Korean Air 801.
(OVER RADIO) Request deviation 1-0 miles left of track.
Korean Air 801, roger.
Veering around cloud cover, Captain Park Yong-chul struggles to get a clear view of his approach.
And finally, he sees what he's been looking for.
It's Guam.
- Guam.
- Good.
Today the weather radar helped us a lot.
Korean Air 801, cleared for ILS.
Runway six, left approach.
Glideslope unusable.
Air traffic controller Kurt Mayo reminds the crew that the airport's glideslope equipment is out of service.
It would normally help them find the runway but since it's under repair, it isn't sending out any signals.
Then, with the crew in the middle of their landing sequence, something unexpected happens.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: Glideslope.
The glideslope appears to come to life.
Is the glideslope working? - The glideslope, yeah? - Yes.
Yes, it's working.
Why is it working? It's a confusing moment.
Unsure what's happening, the crew continue to prepare for their landing.
60 check.
Gear down.
Check.
Approaching 1,400.
Since today's glideslope condition is not good, we need to maintain 1,440.
Please set it.
Set.
At 40 minutes after 1:00 in the morning, Guam controller Kurt Mayo once again makes contact with the crew.
Korean Air 801, contact the Agana tower 118.
1.
He passes the plane onto the airport tower and says goodbye in Korean.
Annyunghy gaseyo.
(SPEAKS KOREAN) 181.
1.
It's the last time he'll ever talk to the crew of the jetliner.
That guy working here probably was a GI in Korea before.
Agana Tower, Korean Air 801 to intercept a localiser.
Six, left.
MAN: (OVER RADIO) Korean Air 801, heavy.
Agana tower.
Runway six cleared to land.
Korean 801, roger.
Cleared to land.
Six, left.
Flaps 30.
Flaps 30.
As the plane descends, clouds and rain close in again.
They've lost sight of the airport.
Look carefully.
MAN: (OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, we're preparing for landing at Agana International Airport in Guam.
Please return your seats to the upright position, fasten your seatbelt and prepare for landing.
Set 560ft.
As the plane flies closer to the ground, the crew expects they'll see the airport any second but the rain makes it hard to see anything.
Isn't the glideslope working? Wiper on.
Then, a computerised voice fills the cockpit.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: 500.
It's the ground proximity warning system, which tells the crew they're just 500ft in the air.
But they still can't see the runway.
BARRY: I'd done this flight many, many times before and when I estimated we were about 30 seconds from landing, I bent down to put my shoes on.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: 200.
The plane is now just 200ft above the ground but still, the crew can't see the runway.
They're quickly running out of time.
Let's make a missed approach.
Not in sight.
Not in sight.
Missed approach! Go around.
Go around! Flaps! COMPUTERISED VOICE: 100.
50.
40.
(JET ROARS) I had no doubt this was still just a normal landing and the aircraft went on .
.
and was decelerating quicker than normal butbut nothing to really alarm me.
- (SMASH!) - (SHOUTING) Things were getting pretty serious then.
The aircraft was starting to break apart.
(PASSENGERS SCREAM) But I forced myself up to look and there was just bottles, bags Everything you can imagine was coming out.
The only way I can really describe it is like about a thousand 737s landing all at once.
On a wooded hillside in Guam, the shattered plane finally grinds to a halt.
(SCREAMS, GROANS) (THUNDER RUMBLES) BARRY SMALL: I was too scared to undo my seatbelt at that stage, 'cause I was waiting for the next bounce to go over an extraanother ravine or whatever was going to happen next.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Miraculously, 11-year-old Rika Matsuda has survived, and is virtually unhurt.
But her mother is trapped and injured.
Mama! Mama! (SHOUTS) Hello! Barry Small is also injured and terrified that fire is sweeping through the plane.
The fire started in the front and proceeded from the front to the back towards me.
There was no floor lighting or anything like that but the fire was so intense, there were no problems seeing where I was going.
Mama! Mama! If help doesn't arrive soon, those who survived the initial crash may be trapped inside the cabin.
(GROANS) MAN: (ON RADIO) Korean Air 801, heavy.
Tower.
How do you hear? Everyone in the cockpit has been killed but airport authorities still have no idea what's happened aboard Flight 801.
Tower.
How do you hear? Hurt by the crash and desperate to escape the ruined plane, Barry Small stumbles towards an opening in the cabin.
I got by these six, six seats and then there was about a six-foot drop down to the ground.
The undercarriage had gone completely.
(GROANS) I came across an obstacle that I had to .
.
to cross, 'cause it was the only part that wasn't burning.
Here.
Go! Get over it! Mama! (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Rika's mother tells her daughter to get out of the burning plane.
- Go.
Go.
- (WHIMPERS) Go.
Go now.
Get out of here.
- Go.
- (CRIES) Now, go.
Go! Please go.
Go.
You must go.
Go now.
Go! The fire is spreading quickly.
As passengers struggle to deal with the disaster, rescue workers don't even know the plane's gone down.
(GROANS IN AGONY) The fire engulfed both the Asian gentleman and myself .
.
to the extent that it burnt my arms .
.
and my watch got that hot, it was melting into my skin, into my flesh and I had to flick it off.
Minutes earlier, Kurt Mayo had passed the passenger jet onto the local tower controllers.
Now he learns it hasn't landed yet.
MAN: (ON RADIO) Approach Agana, did Korean Air come back to you? No.
I cleared him to land and I don't know where he's at.
He didn't land? Negative.
Oh, my God.
(ALARM TRILLS) Within minutes, Guam fire chief Chuck Sanchez is en route.
(SIREN WAILS) MAN: I was thinking, "My God.
"747.
Where's it at? "Is it on island? Is it on sea? "What is the plan here?" (SIREN WAILS) (GROANS, GRUNTS) Aaahh! We both fell off the side of the container, and the Asian gentleman disappeared into the jungle.
So I rolled over onto my back .
.
and I managed to crawl with my elbows.
There was still a little bit of skin on my elbows left.
Small has a badly broken right leg.
(GROANS) He crawls away from the wreckage.
Many more people remain trapped inside.
(GROANS) Lying there, it just sounded like a battlefield.
It was just like a movie.
Things were exploding short of me, going over the top of me.
(GROANS, GRUNTS) Things were landing beside us on fire.
It was just indescribable.
There's only one way for emergency crews to get down to the wreck site - along a single access road that runs beside Nimitz Hill.
As they race to the accident scene, rescue workers discover a major obstacle - a pipeline has been ripped out of the ground by the crash and thrown across the road.
There's no way around it.
Having heard about the crash, the island's governor, Carl Gutierrez, has joined the rescue team.
Company Seven.
Get this thing out of the way.
You guys, get the medikits and come with me.
We reached the closest point of approach to the crash site, which was up the hill and probably about another 150 yards downhill.
"Gentlemen, turn on whatever lights you've got "to guide us down this path "and let's do it.
" MAN: We started running and listening to the screams so we can guide ourselves because there was just nothing but overgrowth on the side of the road.
At one point, I stopped him.
I go, "Governor, sir, "I need you to make some serious decision in this operation "and I don't think I want you to move further.
"I'd like for you to stay on this side "and, you know, I don't want you to get hurt.
"Let us do this job.
" He goes, "No.
I want to help you guys.
" (SCREAMS, GROANS) At the site of the crash, flames are devouring the wreckage.
(GROANS) Hampered by his broken leg, Small can only look on as people cry out for help.
I lay at that bank for the whole night during that time, hearing people call out in a foreign language, which initially sounded like good healthy calls for help, then turn into screams as the fire got more intense.
And after a period of time, the fire even grew worse and the screams faded away.
Finally, almost an hour after the accident, Sanchez's crew reaches the site.
SANCHEZ: I split them up into two rescue and search units.
"I need half of you guys to start from the tail end "and I need the other half to start from the front end of this plane, "and let's meet in the middle "and do what we can to help the survivors.
" Mama! Mama! Guam's governor Carl Gutierrez sees Rika Matsuda all alone and crying out for her mother.
Don't cry, little angel.
Everything will be OK.
GUTIERREZ: I did not dare let her go.
It's something that I almost .
.
like there was a bond between me and that little girl.
And I found out later she was 11, but she looked really smaller than 11 years old.
Fire chief Chuck Sanchez finds Barry Small in the sword grass.
Take my jacket.
SMALL: He gave me his fire jacket and put it under my head to comfort me.
Alright.
Let's go.
Later on, he was very distressed that he had to come back and get it back 'cause he was getting burnt dragging people and bodies out of the aircraft.
SANCHEZ: We were cutting trees to use for splints.
We were taking off our protective gears to cover the survivors.
It's clear to rescue personnel that for many, they've arrived too late.
But Sanchez isn't giving up.
He sends a team to search further into the wreckage.
Group two.
Start at the tail and work forward.
Go.
Well, there was this large explosion where we were at.
(EXPLOSION) Then I go, "Did we lose our people?" A Boeing 747 has crashed on a rugged hillside in Guam just a few miles short of the airport.
There were 254 people on board.
Rescue workers comb through the wreckage when an explosion rips through the remains of the plane.
SANCHEZ: No radio transmission at all.
We lost all transmission.
Then, finally, somebody came out.
"Sir, we're OK.
"We survived the explosion.
Everybody's accounted for.
" It's not until the dawn finally comes that rescue workers can see the extent of the damage.
The plane has spilled down the mountain and broken into several large pieces.
Only 26 people survived the disaster.
Friends and family are desperate for any news.
Many bodies are badly burned.
Although most of the passengers are Korean, Sean Burke and his girlfriend, Wendy Bunten, are among a few Americans on the flight.
Thousands of kilometres away, news of the crash reaches Sean's parents.
When she hears about the crash, Sean Burke's stepmother doesn't know if Sean is alive or dead.
He could've been burned in the crash.
He could be unconscious in a local hospital there and we just wanted to go over and bring him back.
So, I mean, 'cause that kept going through our mind, that .
.
he possibly could be laying on the hillside.
Since Guam is an American territory, the responsibility for investigating the crash falls to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Greg Feith is the lead investigator.
When he arrives on the site, he has to contend with more than just the carnage of the plane crash.
Grieving family members surround the scene, making it especially difficult for investigators to work.
As an accident investigator, you have to keep your emotions in check.
It's like being a doctor in an ER room.
You have You see this devastation.
You see this tragedy unfolding in front of you.
You hear about all of the sad stories, especially when there are kids and innocent people involved.
And as an accident investigator, you have to keep those emotions in check because you have to remain objective, you have to remain emotionless to be able to do your job effectively.
And we had a whole building full of people just like us.
They were all grieving and crying out.
It was just horrible.
(CRIES) One of the first things we did was we went out on site and we did what we call a site survey.
We had to really get an understanding of what we were dealing with as far as the wreckage and how we were going to conduct the on-scene investigation.
During the preliminary investigation, Feith finds that large sections of the plane are almost completely intact.
The airplane landed relatively under control, that is, that the pilot basically landed the airplane into the trees and into that terrain.
Unfortunately it was three miles from the airport.
Investigators find a number of items that survived the crash and the fire that followed including the landing chart the crew was using as it approached Guam Airport.
Investigators also find Captain Park's travel bag and in it, discover a small plastic pill container.
Captain Park had been prescribed a variety of drugs, including pills containing benzodiazepine, a class of drugs often used as a sedative.
The pills and tissue samples from Captain Park's remains are sent for analysis.
The landing chart becomes part of a growing pile of evidence.
Using information from the jet's flight data recorder, investigators recreate the plane's flight path.
The relatively gentle slope of its descent supports Feith's belief that the jet all but landed on the hillside.
But the flight path shouldn't look like this.
Korean Air 801 cleared for ILS, runway six, left approach.
Glideslope unusable.
Korean 801.
Roger.
Clear for ILS, runway six, left.
The crew had been told that the glideslope at the airport wasn't working.
It meant that the captain had to take more manual control of his plane.
It's now up to the pilot to fly an established procedure called the 'step down', where he starts at an altitude of, say, 2,000 feet.
When he gets to a particular point, located by what they call DME - distance measuring equipment - he then starts a descent to another prescribed altitude.
If the crew was following the step down procedure, its flight path would resemble a set of stairs.
But after the first step, the plane enters a long, slow descent.
If you don't hit those step downs, and those altitudes are prescribed to give you terrain clearance, if you don't fly that as depicted on the approach chart, you run the risk of flying into an obstruction or high terrain.
The plane's cockpit voice recorder has also been recovered from the debris.
Feith and his team begin to analyse it, hoping to better understand what happened in the cockpit.
Set 560ft.
On two separate occasions, Captain Park gave orders to descend long before he was supposed to.
But there are other clues on the tape as well.
The cockpit voice recorder provided us, the investigators, quite a bit of information.
One of the key elements that we found was that the flight crew appeared to be tired.
Really sleepy.
And this was a chartered flight, so it would've put them on what we call 'backside of the clock' flying.
That is, they wouldn't be normally flying during the day.
They are now flying at night.
And typically your body says you should be asleep when it's dark outside.
The sedatives could've made a difficult situation even worse.
But when the lab results come back, they're conclusive - while he had the pills with him, there are no traces of them in Captain Park's system.
Could a vital missing piece of equipment be responsible for the crash? A Boeing 747 has crashed on a rugged hillside in Guam just a few miles short of the airport.
When lead investigator Greg Feith returns to the cockpit voice recorder he focuses on the captain's discussion of the glideslope.
Is the glideslope working? The glideslope, yeah? Yes.
Yes, it's working.
Why is it working? He started to see the glideslope needle move a little bit and started to question the other crew members as to whether or not the glideslope was actually working or not.
It's early in the morning.
After a long flight Captain Park is tired, perhaps confused and distracted by the unexpected readings on his glideslope.
It became very apparent listening to the cockpit voice recorder that, in fact, he got fixated.
But Feith still doesn't understand why Park's glideslope appeared to be working.
Was there a problem on this plane or is the equipment susceptible to problems that could effect other jets as well? To find out he brings in navigation expert Nelson Sponheimer.
I spent some time looking at the transcript, trying to determine what the navigation issues were, why a good airplane was in the wrong place and to investigate the apparent confusion on the part of the crew who thought that the glideslope was working at least part of the time.
Sponheimer sends a team of investigators to Guam.
They fly over the island trying to determine whether radio signals from a nearby military base could have acted on the plane making it seem like the glideslope was working.
Glideslope receivers can respond to non-glideslope signals, particularly when the intended glideslope signal is absent.
If there are spurious signals on the channel and they contain the right information they can cause intermittent movements of the glideslope needle.
Set 560ft.
But the signals wouldn't be sustained.
Like a light switch turning quickly on and off, the glideslope indicator would give periodic indications that it was working but not for long.
My conclusion was that spurious signals whether they be fromer, other transmitters or failed ground equipments, such as personal walkie-talkies, could not cause a sustained warning flag movement.
If the glideslope wasn't fully operating, why did Park believe it was? And even if he did believe it was working, why did he crash into Nimitz Hill? Isn't the glideslope working? Wiper on.
As investigators continue to try to piece together the causes of the crash, Barry Small is trying to understand why he and 25 others survived.
I went to touch my shoes.
We hit the ground.
And I was accidentally in the perfect crash position by somesome sort of miracle.
An airline engineering apprentice and helicopter pilot, Small understands airplanes.
I do firmly believe there are some changes that could be made to the aircraft.
Small believes that the way crossbars are built into aircraft seats caused one of his legs to break but luck saved his other leg.
My right leg went forward and crashed into the bar in front of the seat and broke.
My left leg was saved by my carry bag stopping my leg going forward into that bar.
Still able to walk on his one good leg, Small escapes while others remain trapped inside.
Since she's young, Rika Matsuda's legs are shorter than a normal adult.
Sitting normally her legs wouldn't have been pressed against the crossbar on impact, so she was able to escape the plane Go.
Go now.
Get out of here.
.
.
while her mother died.
Small is also convinced that the flames that first spread through the cabin of Korean Air Flight 801 were preventable.
They estimate that those top lockers had over 462 litres of burnable alcohol on board.
Had the plane been full it could be at least twice that amount.
During the crash, Small believes that the duty-free alcohol mixed with oxygen in the plane's ceiling.
The combination ignited with deadly results.
It's a fire he thinks could have been prevented.
Why have this risk, alcohol and oxygen? I thought, you know, if an aircraft's about safety, this is just a blatant breaking of the rules of safety, as far as I'm concerned.
As he continues to recover from the accident, Small is determined to prevent what had happened to him from happening to others.
He decides to push for changes on how seats are made and how duty-free alcohol is stored.
For NTSB investigator Greg Feith the biggest question still remains - how did an experienced pilot, one recently honoured by his company for his safety record, crash his plane five kilometres short of the airport? As the investigation continues he discovers that the landing chart the crew was using was more than six months old and out-of-date.
It's an indication that the crew could have been better prepared for the landing.
When he reviews the training practices for Korean Airlines, Feith uncovers more gaps in the information that the crew received.
We found that the Korean Airlines flight crew had all of their training based on airports with approaches where the DME was always co-located at the airport.
'DME' is distance measuring equipment, electronic beacons that tell pilots where they are in relation to the airport.
Often the final beacon is found at the foot of the runway.
That was not the case in Guam.
The airport was in fact five kilometres further on.
Struggling to see through the rain, Park was unable to find the airport.
Distracted by the unexpected glideslope readings, Park used the final beacon as a guide, expecting it to take him right to the runway.
Let's make a missed approach.
- Not in sight? - Not in sight.
Missed approach.
Go around.
Go around.
Flaps! It's clear that Flight 801 flew an approach about three miles premature.
In other words, the descent was about three miles early.
It was a normal approach otherwise, just to the wrong location.
We think that based on fatigue and some of their training that in fact when the flight crew crashed the airplane, when the counter got to zero, they thought the airport should be there.
A fully loaded 747 weighs more than 200,000kg.
Like an enormous ocean liner, it can't change course quickly.
100.
50.
Blinded by rain and relying on their equipment, the crew of Korean Air Flight 801 thought they were heading straight at the runway.
When they realised something was wrong .
.
it was too late.
As the investigation continues Feith and his team make a startling discovery.
Equipment that would've given the crew more time to react had been disabled on purpose.
In August of 1997, the crash of Korean Air Flight 801 took the lives of more than 200 people.
The final accident investigation report is published more than two years after the crash.
It lays blame on the Korean Airline's training methods and the crew's over-reliance on the jet's automation.
But it also has sharp words reserved for the FAA, the body that regulates air travel in the United States.
Because of an FAA decision, a critical piece of technology that could have saved Flight 801 was intentionally disabled.
The Minimum Safe Altitude Warning System, or MSAW, is a standard piece of equipment at major American airports but in Guam the FAA had made a critical alteration to the way it was used.
MSAW uses radar to watch the planes as they come into the airport.
If they're too low, a warning is given to air traffic controllers who can then relay it to the crew.
But in Guam the system kept giving nuisance readings to controllers.
The controllers kept getting these nuisance warnings.
They redesigned the software and moved the limitations of the MSAW further away from the airport where it afforded no-one a level of protection.
Instead of watching the planes as they neared the airport, the system in Guam now tracked them when they were more than 80 kilometres away over the ocean.
I think the best way to describe that would've been, and should be, irresponsible because you've taken this system that was designed as a level of protection, not only for the controller, but you've taken the protection away from the flying public.
For the passengers and crew of Flight 801, the lack of the MSAW system sealed their fate.
If the system had been working the crash could have been avoided.
Without it the crew had no warning at all.
The two pilots didn't wanna die.
They had families.
No-one wanted to die.
Um, we still do not blame them.
I mean, is The bottom line is nobody wanted to be in that situation.
It was just something that happened.
For Barry Small, the years since the crash of Flight 801 have been emotional and frustrating.
The Civil Aviation Authority in his homeland of New Zealand has acknowledged the potential danger posed by duty-free liquor on board but so far no policies have been changed.
His desire to modify airplane seat design has also been ignored.
I have taken several steps to, um, put this idea forward.
And in a lot of cases it's initially met with enthusiasm but it eventually ends up in the too-hard basket.
Andwhen I try to approach seat-design people there's no-one wants to hear about it.
Sean Burke was never officially identified as a victim of Flight 801.
Wendy Bunten was positively identified but DNA samples only proved that a white male was on the plane near her.
Bill and I never gave up hope that Sean had survived the crash, um, even after we came home for, I would say, a year or two.
Every time the phone rang, every time somebody knocked on the door.
We expected a phone message saying, "Hi, Dad.
This is your son Sean.
" Eventually, several years after the crash, Barry Small was able to give Kathy Burke and her husband some sense of finality and an enduring image of their son.
When we met him and he wanted to tell us that in the 12-hour layover in Seoul he was wandering around and finally heard two people speaking English and he said they were so much in love that he did not want to interrupt their conversation.
For Sean's father, the deep sorrow of the crash will never completely leave.
For me the grief of Sean's loss never ends.
Hasn't gotten better.
Hasn't got worse.
Just another day.
Erfor everybody else it's gone.
You know, I expect people to move on.
But I'll be this way till the day I'm with him again.
For Barry Small there is anger too but also incredible gratitude for surviving.
BARRY: So many people have told me that I survived for a reason.
I've been searching for that reason for nine years now .
.
and I truly believe if someone would listen to my story about the oxygen and the alcohol .
.
and the improvement of the seats .
.
that I could justify in my own mind that I don't have to feel guilty about surviving.
Supertext Captions by Red Bee Media Australia
Look carefully.
Rain is making it impossible to see.
- Not in sight.
Missed approach! - Go around! More than 200 passengers are on board.
(SCREAMS) As I turned around, a huge fireball came out.
(SCREAMS) Investigators search for clues.
Could a vital missing piece of equipment be responsible for the crash? I think the best way to describe that would have been irresponsible.
(SCREAMS) I know a lot of people could have walked off that plane that night.
Nothing will change my views on that.
Nimitz Hill, Guam.
Once the site of fierce American offensives during World War II.
For over 50 years, there's been peace here.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Now the hill is peaceful, invaded by hunters and the normal quiet is broken by the roar of jumbo jets as they fly overhead.
Every night, commercial pilots must fly over this tall rocky outcrop and land at Guam's Agana International Airport.
Flights come from airports all across Asia.
Just past midnight on August 6, 1997, Korean Airlines Flight 801 is on its way to Guam from Seoul, South Korea.
42-year-old Captain Park Yong-chul is at the controls.
A former Korean air force pilot, Park has been flying 747s for more than six years.
Just a few months ago, he received a flight safety award from the president of Korean Air for successfully handling a 747 engine failure at low altitude.
Park is supposed to be flying to the United Arab Emirates tonight but a scheduling change has put him in command of this shorter flight to Guam.
In the cabin, Korean, Japanese and Western tourists are heading for Guam's pristine beaches.
Guam is a US territory, run under US law.
The island is tiny - fewer than 600 square kilometres - but there's enough sand to keep people coming.
24-year-old Sean Burke and his girlfriend, Wendy Bunten, are planning to make the most of Guam's beaches.
They're flying in from San Diego for a vacation.
MAN: Sean and Wendy were going to Guam to do some scuba diving, reef diving, and at the same time they were going to visit her brother who was in the navy over there.
He was a navy doctor.
Flight 801 is taking Barry Small back to work.
He's returning to Guam from New Zealand for another 6-month contract as a helicopter pilot.
But he does it with a heavy heart.
The night before I left, my father had a heart attack .
.
and I had to CPR him until the ambulance arrived and decided to cancel the contract so I could, er, help him but he was insistent that, "You must carry on with your job.
" The flight is still a couple of hours from Guam when the calm evening is brutally interrupted.
Watch the speed.
There could be severe turbulence.
Make an announcement to have everyone in their seats with seatbelts on.
(OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking.
Even an experienced flyer like Barry Small is surprised.
BARRY: There was no lead-up to this turbulence.
Anybody that wasn't strapped down was going to be airborne, that's for sure.
The lockers were rattling and anything in those lockers was bound to break.
It was a horrendous shudder.
It's heavy turbulence .
.
but the crew ride it out.
Eventually, the flight returns to normal.
We're through it.
Let the passengers know.
(OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking.
We have cleared the turbulent area.
But it's left some of the passengers shaken.
Shh.
It's OK, Rika.
We'll be there soon.
Ma'am, if you don't mind, I'm going to move this duty-free up here for you.
The cabin crew cleans up .
.
and the passengers settle in for the rest of the trip.
BARRY: Because of that 12-hour stopover in Seoul and no change of clothes, it was getting rather uncomfortable in a tropical environment and I took my shoes off just to relax a little bit and feel more comfortable.
Captain Park and his crew begin looking ahead.
They know there's more unsettled weather coming.
Rain has been hitting Guam on and off all day.
In fact, August is the heart of the island's rainy season.
Small showers can pop up, making visibility unpredictable.
MAN: In that particular part of the world, they have what's called a 'top hat thunderstorm'.
That is a very small thunderstorm that builds up at all times of the day and it's very short-lived so it wouldn't hamper the pilot's ability to actually conduct the approach.
It's gonna just obscure his view for some period of time while they're transiting through it.
Just past 1:00 in the morning, Korean Air Flight 801 makes initial radio contact with Kurt Mayo, the radar controller at Guam's airport.
Guam centre, Korea 801 leaving level 410 for 2,600.
Korean Air 801, roger.
The crew aren't the only ones preparing to land.
After more than three hours of flying through the night, the passengers get ready for the airport.
BARRY: I saw the lights of Guam and I knew exactly where the aircraft was because I'd been there many times before.
(EQUIPMENT BEEPS RAPIDLY) Captain Park has navigated Nimitz Hill nine times before but this time, there's a major difference.
At airports around the world, pilots land with the help of a glideslope - an electronic system that helps planes safely touch down.
If pilots follow the directions given by the glideslope, it guides them to the foot of the runway.
The glideslope beacon at Guam Airport has been removed for extensive maintenance.
Without the airport transmitter, Park's glideslope indicator in the cockpit is useless.
Landing without a glideslope is rare but it does happen.
In Guam, the transmitter is scheduled to be out of service for more than two months.
But impaired navigation is only part of the problem.
Captain Park is fighting exhaustion.
They make us classic guys work to the maximum.
Probably this way, hotel expenses are saved on cabin crews and they maximise flight hours.
Really sleepy.
Now, as the plane approaches Guam, clouds and rain block their way.
Captain, Guam conditions no good.
It's raining a lot.
It's been several hours since Captain Park and his crew left Seoul.
Now the rain is making the late flight more difficult.
Tired and fighting the weather, the captain begins the final approach to the airport.
August 6, 1997.
It's close to 1:30 in the morning.
On Korean Airlines Flight 801, a tired captain is preparing to land at Agana Airport on the island of Guam.
In the cabin, 237 passengers are getting ready to begin their holidays or get back to work.
BARRY: The flight, other than the turbulence, was totally normal.
We had our meals and it was just a totally normal flight in every way.
As the jet approaches Guam, an erratic storm pushes rain and clouds between the plane and the airport.
It's hard to see.
The captain wants to make a small change in course to avoid the worst of the weather.
Request 20 mile deviation to the left as we are descending.
Guam Centre, Korean Air 801.
(OVER RADIO) Request deviation 1-0 miles left of track.
Korean Air 801, roger.
Veering around cloud cover, Captain Park Yong-chul struggles to get a clear view of his approach.
And finally, he sees what he's been looking for.
It's Guam.
- Guam.
- Good.
Today the weather radar helped us a lot.
Korean Air 801, cleared for ILS.
Runway six, left approach.
Glideslope unusable.
Air traffic controller Kurt Mayo reminds the crew that the airport's glideslope equipment is out of service.
It would normally help them find the runway but since it's under repair, it isn't sending out any signals.
Then, with the crew in the middle of their landing sequence, something unexpected happens.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: Glideslope.
The glideslope appears to come to life.
Is the glideslope working? - The glideslope, yeah? - Yes.
Yes, it's working.
Why is it working? It's a confusing moment.
Unsure what's happening, the crew continue to prepare for their landing.
60 check.
Gear down.
Check.
Approaching 1,400.
Since today's glideslope condition is not good, we need to maintain 1,440.
Please set it.
Set.
At 40 minutes after 1:00 in the morning, Guam controller Kurt Mayo once again makes contact with the crew.
Korean Air 801, contact the Agana tower 118.
1.
He passes the plane onto the airport tower and says goodbye in Korean.
Annyunghy gaseyo.
(SPEAKS KOREAN) 181.
1.
It's the last time he'll ever talk to the crew of the jetliner.
That guy working here probably was a GI in Korea before.
Agana Tower, Korean Air 801 to intercept a localiser.
Six, left.
MAN: (OVER RADIO) Korean Air 801, heavy.
Agana tower.
Runway six cleared to land.
Korean 801, roger.
Cleared to land.
Six, left.
Flaps 30.
Flaps 30.
As the plane descends, clouds and rain close in again.
They've lost sight of the airport.
Look carefully.
MAN: (OVER P.
A.
) Ladies and gentlemen, we're preparing for landing at Agana International Airport in Guam.
Please return your seats to the upright position, fasten your seatbelt and prepare for landing.
Set 560ft.
As the plane flies closer to the ground, the crew expects they'll see the airport any second but the rain makes it hard to see anything.
Isn't the glideslope working? Wiper on.
Then, a computerised voice fills the cockpit.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: 500.
It's the ground proximity warning system, which tells the crew they're just 500ft in the air.
But they still can't see the runway.
BARRY: I'd done this flight many, many times before and when I estimated we were about 30 seconds from landing, I bent down to put my shoes on.
COMPUTERISED VOICE: 200.
The plane is now just 200ft above the ground but still, the crew can't see the runway.
They're quickly running out of time.
Let's make a missed approach.
Not in sight.
Not in sight.
Missed approach! Go around.
Go around! Flaps! COMPUTERISED VOICE: 100.
50.
40.
(JET ROARS) I had no doubt this was still just a normal landing and the aircraft went on .
.
and was decelerating quicker than normal butbut nothing to really alarm me.
- (SMASH!) - (SHOUTING) Things were getting pretty serious then.
The aircraft was starting to break apart.
(PASSENGERS SCREAM) But I forced myself up to look and there was just bottles, bags Everything you can imagine was coming out.
The only way I can really describe it is like about a thousand 737s landing all at once.
On a wooded hillside in Guam, the shattered plane finally grinds to a halt.
(SCREAMS, GROANS) (THUNDER RUMBLES) BARRY SMALL: I was too scared to undo my seatbelt at that stage, 'cause I was waiting for the next bounce to go over an extraanother ravine or whatever was going to happen next.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Miraculously, 11-year-old Rika Matsuda has survived, and is virtually unhurt.
But her mother is trapped and injured.
Mama! Mama! (SHOUTS) Hello! Barry Small is also injured and terrified that fire is sweeping through the plane.
The fire started in the front and proceeded from the front to the back towards me.
There was no floor lighting or anything like that but the fire was so intense, there were no problems seeing where I was going.
Mama! Mama! If help doesn't arrive soon, those who survived the initial crash may be trapped inside the cabin.
(GROANS) MAN: (ON RADIO) Korean Air 801, heavy.
Tower.
How do you hear? Everyone in the cockpit has been killed but airport authorities still have no idea what's happened aboard Flight 801.
Tower.
How do you hear? Hurt by the crash and desperate to escape the ruined plane, Barry Small stumbles towards an opening in the cabin.
I got by these six, six seats and then there was about a six-foot drop down to the ground.
The undercarriage had gone completely.
(GROANS) I came across an obstacle that I had to .
.
to cross, 'cause it was the only part that wasn't burning.
Here.
Go! Get over it! Mama! (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Rika's mother tells her daughter to get out of the burning plane.
- Go.
Go.
- (WHIMPERS) Go.
Go now.
Get out of here.
- Go.
- (CRIES) Now, go.
Go! Please go.
Go.
You must go.
Go now.
Go! The fire is spreading quickly.
As passengers struggle to deal with the disaster, rescue workers don't even know the plane's gone down.
(GROANS IN AGONY) The fire engulfed both the Asian gentleman and myself .
.
to the extent that it burnt my arms .
.
and my watch got that hot, it was melting into my skin, into my flesh and I had to flick it off.
Minutes earlier, Kurt Mayo had passed the passenger jet onto the local tower controllers.
Now he learns it hasn't landed yet.
MAN: (ON RADIO) Approach Agana, did Korean Air come back to you? No.
I cleared him to land and I don't know where he's at.
He didn't land? Negative.
Oh, my God.
(ALARM TRILLS) Within minutes, Guam fire chief Chuck Sanchez is en route.
(SIREN WAILS) MAN: I was thinking, "My God.
"747.
Where's it at? "Is it on island? Is it on sea? "What is the plan here?" (SIREN WAILS) (GROANS, GRUNTS) Aaahh! We both fell off the side of the container, and the Asian gentleman disappeared into the jungle.
So I rolled over onto my back .
.
and I managed to crawl with my elbows.
There was still a little bit of skin on my elbows left.
Small has a badly broken right leg.
(GROANS) He crawls away from the wreckage.
Many more people remain trapped inside.
(GROANS) Lying there, it just sounded like a battlefield.
It was just like a movie.
Things were exploding short of me, going over the top of me.
(GROANS, GRUNTS) Things were landing beside us on fire.
It was just indescribable.
There's only one way for emergency crews to get down to the wreck site - along a single access road that runs beside Nimitz Hill.
As they race to the accident scene, rescue workers discover a major obstacle - a pipeline has been ripped out of the ground by the crash and thrown across the road.
There's no way around it.
Having heard about the crash, the island's governor, Carl Gutierrez, has joined the rescue team.
Company Seven.
Get this thing out of the way.
You guys, get the medikits and come with me.
We reached the closest point of approach to the crash site, which was up the hill and probably about another 150 yards downhill.
"Gentlemen, turn on whatever lights you've got "to guide us down this path "and let's do it.
" MAN: We started running and listening to the screams so we can guide ourselves because there was just nothing but overgrowth on the side of the road.
At one point, I stopped him.
I go, "Governor, sir, "I need you to make some serious decision in this operation "and I don't think I want you to move further.
"I'd like for you to stay on this side "and, you know, I don't want you to get hurt.
"Let us do this job.
" He goes, "No.
I want to help you guys.
" (SCREAMS, GROANS) At the site of the crash, flames are devouring the wreckage.
(GROANS) Hampered by his broken leg, Small can only look on as people cry out for help.
I lay at that bank for the whole night during that time, hearing people call out in a foreign language, which initially sounded like good healthy calls for help, then turn into screams as the fire got more intense.
And after a period of time, the fire even grew worse and the screams faded away.
Finally, almost an hour after the accident, Sanchez's crew reaches the site.
SANCHEZ: I split them up into two rescue and search units.
"I need half of you guys to start from the tail end "and I need the other half to start from the front end of this plane, "and let's meet in the middle "and do what we can to help the survivors.
" Mama! Mama! Guam's governor Carl Gutierrez sees Rika Matsuda all alone and crying out for her mother.
Don't cry, little angel.
Everything will be OK.
GUTIERREZ: I did not dare let her go.
It's something that I almost .
.
like there was a bond between me and that little girl.
And I found out later she was 11, but she looked really smaller than 11 years old.
Fire chief Chuck Sanchez finds Barry Small in the sword grass.
Take my jacket.
SMALL: He gave me his fire jacket and put it under my head to comfort me.
Alright.
Let's go.
Later on, he was very distressed that he had to come back and get it back 'cause he was getting burnt dragging people and bodies out of the aircraft.
SANCHEZ: We were cutting trees to use for splints.
We were taking off our protective gears to cover the survivors.
It's clear to rescue personnel that for many, they've arrived too late.
But Sanchez isn't giving up.
He sends a team to search further into the wreckage.
Group two.
Start at the tail and work forward.
Go.
Well, there was this large explosion where we were at.
(EXPLOSION) Then I go, "Did we lose our people?" A Boeing 747 has crashed on a rugged hillside in Guam just a few miles short of the airport.
There were 254 people on board.
Rescue workers comb through the wreckage when an explosion rips through the remains of the plane.
SANCHEZ: No radio transmission at all.
We lost all transmission.
Then, finally, somebody came out.
"Sir, we're OK.
"We survived the explosion.
Everybody's accounted for.
" It's not until the dawn finally comes that rescue workers can see the extent of the damage.
The plane has spilled down the mountain and broken into several large pieces.
Only 26 people survived the disaster.
Friends and family are desperate for any news.
Many bodies are badly burned.
Although most of the passengers are Korean, Sean Burke and his girlfriend, Wendy Bunten, are among a few Americans on the flight.
Thousands of kilometres away, news of the crash reaches Sean's parents.
When she hears about the crash, Sean Burke's stepmother doesn't know if Sean is alive or dead.
He could've been burned in the crash.
He could be unconscious in a local hospital there and we just wanted to go over and bring him back.
So, I mean, 'cause that kept going through our mind, that .
.
he possibly could be laying on the hillside.
Since Guam is an American territory, the responsibility for investigating the crash falls to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Greg Feith is the lead investigator.
When he arrives on the site, he has to contend with more than just the carnage of the plane crash.
Grieving family members surround the scene, making it especially difficult for investigators to work.
As an accident investigator, you have to keep your emotions in check.
It's like being a doctor in an ER room.
You have You see this devastation.
You see this tragedy unfolding in front of you.
You hear about all of the sad stories, especially when there are kids and innocent people involved.
And as an accident investigator, you have to keep those emotions in check because you have to remain objective, you have to remain emotionless to be able to do your job effectively.
And we had a whole building full of people just like us.
They were all grieving and crying out.
It was just horrible.
(CRIES) One of the first things we did was we went out on site and we did what we call a site survey.
We had to really get an understanding of what we were dealing with as far as the wreckage and how we were going to conduct the on-scene investigation.
During the preliminary investigation, Feith finds that large sections of the plane are almost completely intact.
The airplane landed relatively under control, that is, that the pilot basically landed the airplane into the trees and into that terrain.
Unfortunately it was three miles from the airport.
Investigators find a number of items that survived the crash and the fire that followed including the landing chart the crew was using as it approached Guam Airport.
Investigators also find Captain Park's travel bag and in it, discover a small plastic pill container.
Captain Park had been prescribed a variety of drugs, including pills containing benzodiazepine, a class of drugs often used as a sedative.
The pills and tissue samples from Captain Park's remains are sent for analysis.
The landing chart becomes part of a growing pile of evidence.
Using information from the jet's flight data recorder, investigators recreate the plane's flight path.
The relatively gentle slope of its descent supports Feith's belief that the jet all but landed on the hillside.
But the flight path shouldn't look like this.
Korean Air 801 cleared for ILS, runway six, left approach.
Glideslope unusable.
Korean 801.
Roger.
Clear for ILS, runway six, left.
The crew had been told that the glideslope at the airport wasn't working.
It meant that the captain had to take more manual control of his plane.
It's now up to the pilot to fly an established procedure called the 'step down', where he starts at an altitude of, say, 2,000 feet.
When he gets to a particular point, located by what they call DME - distance measuring equipment - he then starts a descent to another prescribed altitude.
If the crew was following the step down procedure, its flight path would resemble a set of stairs.
But after the first step, the plane enters a long, slow descent.
If you don't hit those step downs, and those altitudes are prescribed to give you terrain clearance, if you don't fly that as depicted on the approach chart, you run the risk of flying into an obstruction or high terrain.
The plane's cockpit voice recorder has also been recovered from the debris.
Feith and his team begin to analyse it, hoping to better understand what happened in the cockpit.
Set 560ft.
On two separate occasions, Captain Park gave orders to descend long before he was supposed to.
But there are other clues on the tape as well.
The cockpit voice recorder provided us, the investigators, quite a bit of information.
One of the key elements that we found was that the flight crew appeared to be tired.
Really sleepy.
And this was a chartered flight, so it would've put them on what we call 'backside of the clock' flying.
That is, they wouldn't be normally flying during the day.
They are now flying at night.
And typically your body says you should be asleep when it's dark outside.
The sedatives could've made a difficult situation even worse.
But when the lab results come back, they're conclusive - while he had the pills with him, there are no traces of them in Captain Park's system.
Could a vital missing piece of equipment be responsible for the crash? A Boeing 747 has crashed on a rugged hillside in Guam just a few miles short of the airport.
When lead investigator Greg Feith returns to the cockpit voice recorder he focuses on the captain's discussion of the glideslope.
Is the glideslope working? The glideslope, yeah? Yes.
Yes, it's working.
Why is it working? He started to see the glideslope needle move a little bit and started to question the other crew members as to whether or not the glideslope was actually working or not.
It's early in the morning.
After a long flight Captain Park is tired, perhaps confused and distracted by the unexpected readings on his glideslope.
It became very apparent listening to the cockpit voice recorder that, in fact, he got fixated.
But Feith still doesn't understand why Park's glideslope appeared to be working.
Was there a problem on this plane or is the equipment susceptible to problems that could effect other jets as well? To find out he brings in navigation expert Nelson Sponheimer.
I spent some time looking at the transcript, trying to determine what the navigation issues were, why a good airplane was in the wrong place and to investigate the apparent confusion on the part of the crew who thought that the glideslope was working at least part of the time.
Sponheimer sends a team of investigators to Guam.
They fly over the island trying to determine whether radio signals from a nearby military base could have acted on the plane making it seem like the glideslope was working.
Glideslope receivers can respond to non-glideslope signals, particularly when the intended glideslope signal is absent.
If there are spurious signals on the channel and they contain the right information they can cause intermittent movements of the glideslope needle.
Set 560ft.
But the signals wouldn't be sustained.
Like a light switch turning quickly on and off, the glideslope indicator would give periodic indications that it was working but not for long.
My conclusion was that spurious signals whether they be fromer, other transmitters or failed ground equipments, such as personal walkie-talkies, could not cause a sustained warning flag movement.
If the glideslope wasn't fully operating, why did Park believe it was? And even if he did believe it was working, why did he crash into Nimitz Hill? Isn't the glideslope working? Wiper on.
As investigators continue to try to piece together the causes of the crash, Barry Small is trying to understand why he and 25 others survived.
I went to touch my shoes.
We hit the ground.
And I was accidentally in the perfect crash position by somesome sort of miracle.
An airline engineering apprentice and helicopter pilot, Small understands airplanes.
I do firmly believe there are some changes that could be made to the aircraft.
Small believes that the way crossbars are built into aircraft seats caused one of his legs to break but luck saved his other leg.
My right leg went forward and crashed into the bar in front of the seat and broke.
My left leg was saved by my carry bag stopping my leg going forward into that bar.
Still able to walk on his one good leg, Small escapes while others remain trapped inside.
Since she's young, Rika Matsuda's legs are shorter than a normal adult.
Sitting normally her legs wouldn't have been pressed against the crossbar on impact, so she was able to escape the plane Go.
Go now.
Get out of here.
.
.
while her mother died.
Small is also convinced that the flames that first spread through the cabin of Korean Air Flight 801 were preventable.
They estimate that those top lockers had over 462 litres of burnable alcohol on board.
Had the plane been full it could be at least twice that amount.
During the crash, Small believes that the duty-free alcohol mixed with oxygen in the plane's ceiling.
The combination ignited with deadly results.
It's a fire he thinks could have been prevented.
Why have this risk, alcohol and oxygen? I thought, you know, if an aircraft's about safety, this is just a blatant breaking of the rules of safety, as far as I'm concerned.
As he continues to recover from the accident, Small is determined to prevent what had happened to him from happening to others.
He decides to push for changes on how seats are made and how duty-free alcohol is stored.
For NTSB investigator Greg Feith the biggest question still remains - how did an experienced pilot, one recently honoured by his company for his safety record, crash his plane five kilometres short of the airport? As the investigation continues he discovers that the landing chart the crew was using was more than six months old and out-of-date.
It's an indication that the crew could have been better prepared for the landing.
When he reviews the training practices for Korean Airlines, Feith uncovers more gaps in the information that the crew received.
We found that the Korean Airlines flight crew had all of their training based on airports with approaches where the DME was always co-located at the airport.
'DME' is distance measuring equipment, electronic beacons that tell pilots where they are in relation to the airport.
Often the final beacon is found at the foot of the runway.
That was not the case in Guam.
The airport was in fact five kilometres further on.
Struggling to see through the rain, Park was unable to find the airport.
Distracted by the unexpected glideslope readings, Park used the final beacon as a guide, expecting it to take him right to the runway.
Let's make a missed approach.
- Not in sight? - Not in sight.
Missed approach.
Go around.
Go around.
Flaps! It's clear that Flight 801 flew an approach about three miles premature.
In other words, the descent was about three miles early.
It was a normal approach otherwise, just to the wrong location.
We think that based on fatigue and some of their training that in fact when the flight crew crashed the airplane, when the counter got to zero, they thought the airport should be there.
A fully loaded 747 weighs more than 200,000kg.
Like an enormous ocean liner, it can't change course quickly.
100.
50.
Blinded by rain and relying on their equipment, the crew of Korean Air Flight 801 thought they were heading straight at the runway.
When they realised something was wrong .
.
it was too late.
As the investigation continues Feith and his team make a startling discovery.
Equipment that would've given the crew more time to react had been disabled on purpose.
In August of 1997, the crash of Korean Air Flight 801 took the lives of more than 200 people.
The final accident investigation report is published more than two years after the crash.
It lays blame on the Korean Airline's training methods and the crew's over-reliance on the jet's automation.
But it also has sharp words reserved for the FAA, the body that regulates air travel in the United States.
Because of an FAA decision, a critical piece of technology that could have saved Flight 801 was intentionally disabled.
The Minimum Safe Altitude Warning System, or MSAW, is a standard piece of equipment at major American airports but in Guam the FAA had made a critical alteration to the way it was used.
MSAW uses radar to watch the planes as they come into the airport.
If they're too low, a warning is given to air traffic controllers who can then relay it to the crew.
But in Guam the system kept giving nuisance readings to controllers.
The controllers kept getting these nuisance warnings.
They redesigned the software and moved the limitations of the MSAW further away from the airport where it afforded no-one a level of protection.
Instead of watching the planes as they neared the airport, the system in Guam now tracked them when they were more than 80 kilometres away over the ocean.
I think the best way to describe that would've been, and should be, irresponsible because you've taken this system that was designed as a level of protection, not only for the controller, but you've taken the protection away from the flying public.
For the passengers and crew of Flight 801, the lack of the MSAW system sealed their fate.
If the system had been working the crash could have been avoided.
Without it the crew had no warning at all.
The two pilots didn't wanna die.
They had families.
No-one wanted to die.
Um, we still do not blame them.
I mean, is The bottom line is nobody wanted to be in that situation.
It was just something that happened.
For Barry Small, the years since the crash of Flight 801 have been emotional and frustrating.
The Civil Aviation Authority in his homeland of New Zealand has acknowledged the potential danger posed by duty-free liquor on board but so far no policies have been changed.
His desire to modify airplane seat design has also been ignored.
I have taken several steps to, um, put this idea forward.
And in a lot of cases it's initially met with enthusiasm but it eventually ends up in the too-hard basket.
Andwhen I try to approach seat-design people there's no-one wants to hear about it.
Sean Burke was never officially identified as a victim of Flight 801.
Wendy Bunten was positively identified but DNA samples only proved that a white male was on the plane near her.
Bill and I never gave up hope that Sean had survived the crash, um, even after we came home for, I would say, a year or two.
Every time the phone rang, every time somebody knocked on the door.
We expected a phone message saying, "Hi, Dad.
This is your son Sean.
" Eventually, several years after the crash, Barry Small was able to give Kathy Burke and her husband some sense of finality and an enduring image of their son.
When we met him and he wanted to tell us that in the 12-hour layover in Seoul he was wandering around and finally heard two people speaking English and he said they were so much in love that he did not want to interrupt their conversation.
For Sean's father, the deep sorrow of the crash will never completely leave.
For me the grief of Sean's loss never ends.
Hasn't gotten better.
Hasn't got worse.
Just another day.
Erfor everybody else it's gone.
You know, I expect people to move on.
But I'll be this way till the day I'm with him again.
For Barry Small there is anger too but also incredible gratitude for surviving.
BARRY: So many people have told me that I survived for a reason.
I've been searching for that reason for nine years now .
.
and I truly believe if someone would listen to my story about the oxygen and the alcohol .
.
and the improvement of the seats .
.
that I could justify in my own mind that I don't have to feel guilty about surviving.
Supertext Captions by Red Bee Media Australia