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Asiana Airlines Flight 221 collision

11 Nov 1998 · Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Anchorage, Alaska

Boeing 747-400 and Aeroflot Ilyushin IL-62 · Pilot error

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Event

NTSB case
ANC99FA012
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
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Completed
Event fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
250
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
1
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
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Aircraft 1 · Boeing 747-400

Aircraft type
Boeing 747
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
HL741
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), NEW YORK, NYTo Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
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
Part 129: Foreign
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
Taxi · from runway
First occurrenceThe 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
On ground/water collision with object
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Aircraft 2 · Ilyushin IL-62

Aircraft type
Ilyushin IL-62
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
RA865
Operator
Aeroflot
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), AKTo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
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
Part 129: Foreign
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
Standing
First occurrenceThe 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
Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Taxispeed, excessive
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Taxispeed, excessive

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

From the Wikipedia article

The Asiana Airlines Flight 221 collision was an accident on 11 November 1998 in which Asiana Airlines and Aeroflot collided at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Korean Wikipedia article “아시아나항공 221편 충돌 사고” (revision 39644807, 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

NTSB narrative

The Boeing 747-400 was taxiing to Gate N-6, after landing on runway 6R. The flight crew reported to the tower that braking action on the runway was poor. While taxiing to the parking ramp, the captain commented to the first officer that the airplane was skidding. As the airplane approached Gate N-6, ground personnel observed the airplane's nosewheels turn 90 degrees toward the gate, but the airplane continued straight ahead, skidding the nosewheels sideways. Ground personnel heard, and the Flight Data Recorder confirmed, an increase in engine power as the airplane continued past the gate. The airplane was then observed turning right, away from the terminal, and colliding with a parked IL-62M airplane. A cleaning person aboard the IL-62M received minor injuries when she was knocked down by the collision. The crew told the NTSB investigator-in-charge that they did not use brakes until attempting to turn away from the parked airplane. Ground witnesses described the taxi speed as "faster than normal." The maximum ground speed recorded by the on-board recorders was 16 knots. The company flight manual states, in part: "(1) Turning... 10 knots or below (5 knots if wet or slippery)." Snow contamination was recorded by the airport authority commencing 11 hours prior to the accident. The airport "Snow Removal Plan" denotes the lead-in lines to the terminal as a Priority 1-A area. Continuous snow removal operations were being conducted at the time of the accident, with all Priority 1 areas, and numerous Priority II areas being plowed and treated. The lead-in taxi lines to the terminal had been sanded five hours prior to the accident. The ramp area, and the lead-in taxi lines had not been plowed. One hour after the accident, about 2 inches of unbroken snow was on the ramp.

Probable cause

The excessive taxi speed by the pilot-in-command. A factor associated with the accident was the pilot's inadequate maneuver to avoid the parked airplane.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

Korean Wikipedia article: 아시아나항공 221편 충돌 사고
Article
아시아나항공 221편 충돌 사고
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
39644807 · 2025-05-04 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q109457972
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ANC99FA012
Event ID
20001211X11355
Case number
ANC99FA012
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
Record
ko Wikipedia article "아시아나항공 221편 충돌 사고" (page 3012779, revision 39644807), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ANC99FA012 (events / aircraft)
Date
NTSB record ANC99FA012: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ANC99FA012
Map position
NTSB record ANC99FA012: events decimal coordinates
Aircraft, operator and route
NTSB record ANC99FA012: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
NTSB record ANC99FA012: operated under Part 129: Foreign
Fatalities
NTSB record ANC99FA012: NTSB API totalFatal
Ground fatalities
NTSB record ANC99FA012: NTSB API ongroundFatal
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Asiana Airlines Flight 221 collision" and NTSB case ANC99FA012, matched by the same flight number and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. 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.
  • The NTSB's operator name is blank for RA865; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.