KAL Flight 801 was apparently making a normal controlled descent to Guam when its outside right engine struck a ridge and sent it sliding 1,500 ft before it exploded, killing all but a handful on board, US investigators said yesterday.
A spokesman for the National Transportation and Safety Board, Mr George Black, stressed that drawing any conclusion about what caused the disaster, in which 29 of the 254 passengers and crew survived, was "speculation".
Mr Black said Flight 801 was "under control and on a steady descent and there was no sign of engine malfunction", according to data studied so far.
After the first full day of inquiry into the crash of the Boeing 747-300, Mr Black said early interviews with some survivors suggested they mostly were on the right side of the aircraft. Damage to the engines revealed the first point of impact was the outside starboard engine. Any decision on "probable cause" would take "about a year", he added.
But Korean Air denied that pilot error was to blame and again accused bad weather and equipment at Agana Airport.
Twenty injured survivors were flown back to Seoul yesterday as US troops continued the task of recovering bodies from the wreckage. More than 200 relatives of the South Korean victims, who came to Agana to claim bodies, have expressed anger at the slow recovery operation.