Korean Air Lines Flight 642
Boeing 707-373C · Controlled flight into terrain
From London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Seoul Gimpo International Airport (GMP)
Event
- 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
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
- Airline
Boeing 707-373C
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- HL7412
- Operator
- Korean Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From London Heathrow Airport (LHR)To Seoul Gimpo International Airport (GMP)
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
Korean Air Lines Flight 642 (flight number: KE642) was a cargo flight of a Boeing 707-373C of the South Korean airline Korean Air Lines from Tehran-Mehrabad Airport to Seoul-Gimpo Airport on 2 August 1976. On this flight, the aircraft was flown into a mountain shortly after takeoff, killing all five occupants and destroying the aircraft.
Accident sequence
On that day, the aircraft was operating a cargo flight from London to Seoul with a scheduled stopover in Tehran. The crew received clearance to take off from runway 29 of Tehran-Mehrabad Airport. The takeoff was carried out in restricted visibility conditions. The pilots deviated from the standard procedures for a departure from the airport. Instead of flying a left turn, they steered the aircraft to the right. The aircraft collided with a mountain 17 kilometres west-northwest of the departure airport at an altitude of 2,020 metres (6,630 feet), whereby it was completely destroyed and all five crew members lost their lives.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident type was determined to be a controlled flight into terrain, which resulted from a disregard of the standard procedures for departures from runway 29 of Tehran-Mehrabad Airport.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Korean-Air-Lines-Flug 642” (revision 269743713, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Korean-Air-Lines-Flug 642
- Article
- Korean-Air-Lines-Flug 642
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269743713 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q108488609
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Korean-Air-Lines-Flug 642" (page 11915771, revision 269743713), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.