Korean Air suffered two fatal widebody freighter accidents and a non-fatal narrowbody hull write-off in 1999. The freighter accidents included a Boeing MD-11 crash at Shanghai, China in April, and a Boeing 747-200F which was destroyed near London Stansted, UK, in December. Both happened within 2min of take-off and involved crew situational awareness.
In the Stansted event the 747 arrived at the airport with a defect in the captain's artificial horizon, which was checked by a ground engineer before departure. Just after take-off the same artificial horizon failed, but the captain did not react despite the fact the flight engineer gave two verbal warnings that the aircraft's roll was excessive. The co-pilot, whose artificial horizon was serviceable, said nothing. The aircraft crashed with 90° left bank and a 40° nose-down attitude.
At that time the airline accelerated a training programme involving Flight Safety Boeing intended to radically improve its safety culture after earlier failures had severely dented its reputation.
Source: Flight International
