The following internal safety audit report into Korean Airlines flying operations was conducted in September 1998 by an external New Zealand check and training pilot. The internal safety audit report was allegedly part of a wider program being overseen by Delta Airlines of America. It was never intended to be public.
The report was allegedly required by the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and insurance companies in the aftermath of the Korean Airlines B747 crash at Guam on 06/08/97 (Flight 801) as a precursor to the setting up of a proposed code sharing arrangement between KAL and Delta Airlines. Prior to any bilateral code share arrangement it is typical to have both organisations conduct mutual audits to satisfy their own internal management, insurance agencies and external legislating authorities.
According to The Wall Street Journal story of 8th April 1999, KAL Executive Vice President Yi-Taek Shim has admitted that “the leaked audit was an internal report written by an expatriate KAL pilot who no longer works for the airline.”
The audit reveals an endemic level of complacency, arrogance and incompetence pervading all sections of Korean Airlines flight operations and apparently was reportedly rejected by Korean Airlines management at that time. Since that time, however, the airline has welcomed Western operational influences and is slowly overhauling the dangerous culture of incompetence that plagues the crew.
Between 1970 and 1999 Korean Air wrote off 16 aircraft in serious incidents and accidents, with the loss of over 700 lives. If safety is no accident, neither is their high accident record. This report demonstrates why.
In 2000 – after acknowledging that they were an international disgrace – Korean Air recruited David Greenberg, a retired Delta Air Lines vice president, to run its operations. He was charged with the impossible task of rescuing the airline from destroying itself. He introduced merit based promotion and cracked down on the corrupt friendship based fast-track promotions for the inner circle of politically aligned pilots, he introduced a new and improved rigorous training program for pilots and made attempts at introducing a western style of cockpit resource management to enhance crew communications. On the surface KAL they seem to have been mildly successful; their last passenger fatal accident was the same one that inspired this report.
Some say Korean are an accident waiting to happen. In the meantime, however, they seem to be an airline waiting to happen. Time will tell.
This blog was originally published on flight.org in 2006.
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