Rescuers pulled charred bodies Wednesday from the wreckage of a Korean Air jet that crashed in the dense jungle of Guam and plowed through rocky hills in a ball of fire. At least 28 of the 254 people on board survived, some of them able to walk away.
The Boeing 747 from Seoul, South Korea, came to rest in a deep ravine three miles from its airport destination on this U.S. island possession in the South Pacific. Seventeen hours later, rescuers said they had found all the survivors."We scoured the whole area all day today," Air Force Col. Al Riggle said. "We know there are some bodies still down there, but it's smoldering too hot."
Flight 801 was carrying mostly Korean tourists, including many families heading to Guam's tropical beaches for vacation, when it crashed in a driving rain just before 10 a.m. Tuesday MDT (2 a.m. Wednesday local time), killing more than 220 people. On board were 23 crew members and at least 13 Americans.
Sixty-nine bodies had been recovered from the smoldering wreckage by the time the rescue effort was called off for the night, said Ginger Cruz, a spokeswoman for Guam Gov. Carl Gutierrez. She said officials confirmed 30 survivors instead of 35 reported earlier.
Officials later gave differing figures for the number of survivors, ranging between 28 and 30. At least three people pulled alive from the crash died later in the hospital.
Korean Air said the survivors included three Americans, identified as Grace Chung, Hyun Seong Hong and Angela Shim. Their hometowns were not available.
The survivors had been seated in the front of the plane, which was largely intact. But the plane's pilot and co-pilot were missing and presumed dead, the airline said.
The governor, one of the first people on the scene, said rain-soaked sawgrass covering the rocks made it so slippery it was impossible to carry survivors more than a few hazardous steps. Hundreds of rescuers had to make their way through mud and the towering, razor-sharp sawgrass.
"It was eerie. As I got close to the scene I could hear the screams," Gutierrez said. "We only had a single flashlight. We had to follow the sounds to find them."
Among the survivors he pulled from the plane was an 11-year-old Japanese girl, slightly hurt, trying to tend to a critically injured flight attendant.
Lt. Cmdr. Jim Lehner, head of the rescue operation, said he heard a small voice call out in Korean. He pulled a child from the wreckage, then found her mother. Some survivors walked away, he said.
On a hilltop overlooking the crash site, a 29-year-old South Korean, Cho Kyuiyoung, sat crying with her face in her lap, handkerchief drenched.
"My husband," she said, sobbing.
The plane, a used Boeing 747-300 delivered to Korean Air in 1984, was trying to land at an airport that lacked both a main landing system and a government-staffed control tower.
A landing system known as the glide slope, which leads planes to the runway, had been out of service at the airport. Such outages are not uncommon, and pilots routinely land with the help of electronic devices that provide locators.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate. The voice and flight-data recorders have been sent to Washington for analysis.
Two Navy CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, with pilots wearing night-vision goggles, rescued survivors, many of them burned.
With the jet still smoldering, Navy Seabees moved in backhoes to crack open the fuselage and try to rescue anyone who might still be alive.
"We were getting there, and people were just screaming. We wanted to help everybody, but we couldn't," police officer Carlos Roman said.
Later, the Navy began clearing a road to the otherwise inaccessible crash site.
In Seoul, Korean Air began notifying victims' relatives, some of whom collapsed in grief. South Korean President Kim Young-sam said, "I can't suppress the overflowing sorrow."
Korean Air planned to fly at least 300 relatives of victims and survivors to Guam Wednesday night. At a hotel on Guam, about 60 relatives gathered in a conference room. Officials and volunteers set up an information center for them, and planned to provide counseling.