Air China flight 129 (CCA129, CA129) is a flight from Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, China to Gimhae International Airport, Busan, South Korea.
On April 15, 2002, the jet on this route crashed into a hill near Pusan, killing 128 of 166 on board.
Disaster
The Boeing 767-200 took off at 0837 local time (0037 UTC). After nearly 2 hours flight, it arrived near Gimhae airport in light rain and mist. On 1120 local time (0220UTC), CA129 got the runway 36L landing clearance from Gimhae tower, but the aircraft go-around after a missed approach due to low visibility. After an attempt to circle-to-land on runway 18R (Which is the same runway from an opposite direction), the crew concentrated too much on the weather and ATC communications while lost the Minimum Safty Altitude (MSA) and crashed into a hill on final of runway 18R at 1140 local time (0240UTC). The aircraft broke into parts and subsequently came into fire. 38 survived including the captain.
Aircraft
Crew Members
- Flight Crew:
- Captain: Wu Xinlu (吴新禄), 6000 hours on Boeing 767, 5 times to Pusan, got the captain's license on November 23, 2001;
- First Officer : Gao Lijie (高立杰);
- 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).
Passengers
Among the 155 passengers, 135 were from Korea, 19 from China and 1 from Uzbekistan.
Weather
Weather at the time of crash was poor. According to the METAR record at Gimhae airport, visibility was below 4000 meters with light rain and mist:
METAR RKPK 150300Z 21009KT 4000 -RA BR SCT005 BKN010 OVC025 16/13 Q1015 =
Accident Report
The official accident report has never been released to the public, but the most reliable explanation was "poor weather on approach".
According to an unidentified source [1], the Civil Aviation Administration of China released an internal file in June 24, 2002, as the reason of the accident had "cleared". The file listed the following events:
- When the aircraft approached the destination, poor weather forced the crew to circle-to-land and the crew lost visual reference on final. Meanwhile, the crew concentrated too much on the weather and on ATC communication, and ignored the minimum safety altitude;
- The captain was not in the cockpit at the time of the crash;
- A combination of poor weather and inexperienced ATC control;
- The landing checklist was not completed on approach.
The internal file also provided the reason why the captain was not in the cockpit. According to this, the scheduled captain asked for a day off, so Air China replaced him with Wu Xinlu, who had just came back from flying a China-Japan route. Because of excessive fatigue, Capt. Wu went to the rear seat in the passenger cabin for a nap after the plane took off from Beijing. He survived while all in the cockpit died. The CVR also recorded a first officer calling, "Come on, call the captain!" in the last seconds.
What Happened to the Flight Number?
Despite this accident, Air China did not need to change the flight route designator for its Beijing - Pusan route. Two days after the accident, another 767 served as flight 129 and safely carried 106 passengers from Beijing to Pusan, although the flight was delayed for 10 hours and 10 minutes due to bad weather. [2] Although Air China now runs a Boeing 737-800 on this route, the flight route designator remains flight 129.
External Links
- [3] Topic of "The 4.15 Air Disaster" on People's Daily (In Simplified Chinese);
- [4] Accident Database record on airdisaster.com;
- [5] Accident aircraft B-2552 photos on airliners.net.