AGANA, Guam -- A Korean Air jumbo jet carrying 254 people crashed in flames Tuesday (Mountain Standard Time) while trying to land on Guam during a rainstorm in the middle of the night. Rescuers scrambled through rugged jungle hills to pull out 30 survivors.
Flight 801 from Seoul, South Korea, to Guam was cleared to land when contact was lost as the jetliner was three miles from Guam's A.B. Won Pat International Airport, said Tom Rea, the Federal Aviation Administration's Pacific representative in Honolulu.
In Washington, a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity said the pilot radioed the airport tower, declared an in-flight emergency 'and mentioned there was a fire on board.' The official said this information came from initial reports by the Federal Aviation Administration and other sources.
Ginger Cruz, a spokeswoman for Guam's governor, said some witnesses reported hearing an explosion before the Boeing 747 went down.
In Seoul, the airline said the plane was carrying 254 people -- 231 passengers, including three infants, and 23 crewmembers. Most of the passengers were Korean tourists and honeymooners. A passenger manifest listed at least 13 U.S. citizens and one Japanese, the airline said. Earlier reports had put the number on board at between 231 and 331.
Rudy Delos-Santos, a reporter at Guam station KOKU, said the wreckage came to a rest about 900 yards from his home in Piti near Nimitz Hill.
'We always hear planes flying over but this one sounded too close,' he said. 'I looked out from my back porch and saw the plane skimming the trees. There was a big ball of fire just before the crash. The plane plowed through the jungle for a minute or so before it came to a rest.'
He said he ran to the area through the darkness, and got within about 80 or 90 yards before law enforcement officials stopped him.
'The fire was still going, and I could see the silhouettes of bodies in and around the plane. It was like a giant bonfire,' he said.
He said he and the rescue workers had to take fresh-air breaks because the stench of burnt fuel and flesh was unbearable.
He said the survivors came from the front of the plane, which was more intact. The back of the plane was in total ruins.
At the Pentagon, officials said the Navy's two CH-46 helicopters at the scene had been able to rescue 30 survivors.
They were taken to the U.S. Naval Hospital on the island and to Guam Memorial Hospital.
'It's the only way out,' Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Hal Pittman said of the helicopter evacuation.
Rescuers on the ground had to negotiate a half-mile through mud and razor-sharp saw grass up to 8 feet high to reach the wreckage.
Cruz said she saw about 10 survivors being treated and prepared for evacuation, some with broken bones, others in shock.
Four people were being treated at the Naval Hospital, where all 300 employees were summoned and on alert, said Jim York, hospital spokesman.
He had few details about the four except to say one was a woman in serious condition and another was a woman with no obvious injuries but shock: 'She's incoherent, doesn't know where she is, that kind of thing.'
Dr. Edwardo Cruz at Guam Memorial said the hospital received its first victim three hours after the crash -- an 11-year-old girl with multiple lacerations and contusions.
The plane went down in heavy rain, said James Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
'I saw it in the fog, then there were these bright red flashes; they filled up the sky,' said Melissa Arnett, 15, who lives on Nimitz Hill, the area where the plane went down. She said she wasn't sure what had happened until about an hour later, when she could see flames.
'Everybody's overwhelmed. It's just a horrific scene,' said Edward Poppe, owner of radio station KSTO, who went to the scene.
'It's a mess. There's a burned-out hulk,' Poppe said.
'The plane is lying in a gully and the gully is filled with smoke.'
He said the tail and part of the fuselage were lying on the ground and 'the rest is twisted metal.'
The airport control tower lost contact with the plane around (1:50 p.m. MST which was 1:50 a.m. Wednesday in Guam), said Jackie Marati, an airport spokeswoman. Police confirmed about 40 minutes later that the plane had crashed, she said.
A landing system known as the glide slope, which leads planes to the runway, had not been in service at the airport since last month, according to sources at the FAA, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to a notice the agency sent pilots, the guidance system was to be down for maintenance until Sept. 12.
When a glide slope guidance is not available, pilots can use other methods, including an electronic device that gives them their distance from the airport. Knowing that distance, they follow a stairstep pattern to the runway.
In Washington, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Karen Jeffries said military forces based on Guam rushed from Andersen Air Force Base to assist in the recovery.
Since the crash site is in the jungle, Navy Seabee construction battalions provided heavy equipment to try to help get rescue personnel to the area, she said.
The NTSB sent a team of 12 officials from Washington to investigate.
The plane ordinarily lands at Guam and then returns to Seoul as Flight 802, according to the current International Passenger Timetable.
The tiny island of Guam is the United States' westernmost possession. Its population is 150,000. Guam is 4,000 miles west of Honolulu and 2,200 southeast of Seoul.
Roughly one-third of Guam's 212 square miles is taken up by military bases.
In another crash involving the airline, 269 people were killed Sept. 1, 1983, when Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet fighter plane after the jetliner strayed into Soviet air space. The company dropped 'Lines' from its name after the crash.