ENG15RA028 · Airbus A330 - 223
Korean Air Airbus A330 - 223 · Incident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Kosrae International Airport (KSA) to Incheon International Airport (ICN)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG15RA028
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Airbus A330 - 223
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A330
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- HL8211
- Operator
- Korean Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Kosrae International Airport (KSA), Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaTo Incheon International Airport (ICN), Incheon S Korea
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Riyadh, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
On July 23, 2015, at about 12:23 UTC, a Korean Air Airbus A330-223, registration number HL8211, experienced a No. 1 (left engine) stall after initial takeoff from the King Khalid International Airport (KSA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The flight crew received a subsequent No. 1 engine exhaust gas temperature overlimit and No. 1 engine fail warning in the cockpit, declared an emergency and performed an in-flight shutdown of the engine and a return to KSA for an uneventful single engine landing.
The Aviation Investigation Bureau of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is conducting the investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board is serving as their Accredited Representative as the State of Manufacture of the engines. For additional information, contact the Aviation Investigation Bureau of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at:
Aviation Safety Department
Presidency of Civil Aviation
P.O. Box 887
Jeddah 21165, Saudi Arabia
Tel.: +966 012 685-6551, Fax: +966 012 685-4250, e-mail: report@aib.gov.sa, website www.aib.gov.sa
AFTN: OEJDYAYX, Telex: 601093 CIVAIR SJ, Cable: CIVILAIR JEDDAH
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ENG15RA028
- Event ID
- 20150727X44635
- Case number
- ENG15RA028
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bb5810892531f2d6daedb9a31a676df586e26abdd9f54e459153022d766cc9e3; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:35:05.184Z.