Investigation Summary
Following a heavy departure from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, the MD-11F was cleared to climb and maintain 1,500 meters (approximately 4,900 feet). During the climb, the first officer mistakenly informed the captain that their assigned altitude was 1,500 feet. At the time, the aircraft was passing through 4,500 feet. Believing the aircraft was nearly 3,000 feet too high, the captain abruptly pushed the control column forward to descend. The sudden maneuver caused the aircraft to enter a steep dive with a descent rate exceeding 34,000 feet per minute. The crew was unable to recover from the high-speed dive before the aircraft impacted a residential and industrial construction site in Xinzhuang. The investigation highlighted the dangers of metric-to-imperial unit confusion, as South Korean crews were accustomed to using feet for all altitude measurements, whereas China utilized meters for altitudes below the transition level.
Final Conclusions
The joint investigative team determined the probable cause was the flight crew's loss of altitude situational awareness. This resulted from an altitude clearance wrongly relayed by the first officer (confusing 1,500 meters with 1,500 feet) and the crew's subsequent overreaction with abrupt, excessive flight control inputs that led to an unrecoverable descent.
Photographic Evidence (1)
Video Analysis
The Plane Was Climbing Normally… Until the Captain Panicked — A detailed breakdown of Korean Air Cargo Flight 6316, exploring how a simple unit conversion error between meters and feet led to a fatal high-speed crash in Shanghai.
If playback is blocked, the owner has disabled embedding — use the link above.
Airframe & Maintenance
Crew Experience
Captain
Hong Sung-sil, age 54.
First Officer
Park Bon-suk, age 35.
Systems & Failure Modes
Altimeter Units
The crew had to manually convert metric altitude clearances from Chinese ATC into feet for their imperial-calibrated instruments.
Flight Management Computer (FMC)
The crew experienced difficulty with lateral navigation (LNAV) shortly after takeoff, increasing their workload before the altitude error occurred.
Interesting Facts
- 01The aircraft was carrying 86 tons of cargo, including 69,122 kg of payload.
- 02The impact occurred approximately 10 to 11.6 kilometers southwest of the airport.
- 03Five people on the ground were killed and between 36 and 42 others were injured.
- 04The aircraft was originally a passenger MD-11 delivered in 1992 and converted to a freighter in 1996.
- 05China, Russia, and parts of Central Asia use meters for altitudes below the transition level, unlike the ICAO standard of feet used in South Korea.
Safety Actions & Advisories
Crew Resource Management Training
The accident emphasized the need for rigorous cross-checking of altitude clearances, especially when operating in regions using metric units.