Chapter Seven: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes.

第七章 造成飞机失事的民族理论

"CAPTAIN, THE WEATHER RADAR HAS HELPED US A LOT"

“机长，气象雷达为我们提供了很大帮助。”

On the morning of August 5, 1997, the captain of Korean Air flight 801 woke at 6 a.m..

时间回溯到1997年8月5日的早晨，大韩航空公司801航班的机长6点钟从睡梦中醒来。

His family would later tell investigators that he went to the gym for an hour, then came home and studied the flight plan for that evening's journey to Guam.

后来，他的家人告诉调查人员，他在健身中心锻炼一个小时后，回到家里，研究那晚飞往关岛的飞行计划。

He napped and ate lunch.

之后，他稍做休息，并吃了午餐。

At three in the afternoon, he left for Seoul, departing early enough, his wife said, to continue his preparations at Kimpo International Airport.

据他的太太讲，下午3点，他就提前启程离开了首尔，前往金浦国际机场，继续为晚上的行程做准备工作。

He had been a pilot with Korean Air for almost four years after coming over from the Korean Air Force.

在从韩国空军退役之后，他已经在大韩航空公司飞行了4年，

He had eighty-nine hundred hours of flight time, including thirty-two hundred hours of experience in jumbo jets.

有着8900个小时的飞行经验，其中包括3200个小时喷气式客机的飞行经验。

A few months earlier, he had been given a flight safety award by his airline for successfully handling a jumbo-jet engine failure at low altitude.

几个月以前，由于成功地控制了一架在低空飞行中引擎失灵的大型喷气式客机，他被授予安全飞行奖章。

He was forty-two years old and in excellent health.

他42岁且身体健康。

At 7 p.m., the captain, his first officer, and the flight engineer met and collected the trip's paper work.

晚上7点，机长同副驾以及飞行工程师见面并准备了飞行文件。

They would be flying a Boeing 747, a model known in the aviation world as the "classic."

他们即将驾驶航空史上闻名遐迩的“经典之作”——一架波音747。

The aircraft was in perfect working order.

该飞机的各个部件运作良好且适于飞行，

It had once been the Korean presidential plane.

并曾一度作为韩国总统的专机。

Flight 801 departed the gate at ten thirty in the evening, and was airborne twenty minutes later.

晚上10点30分，801航班离开登机口，20分钟后开始了它的旅程，

Takeoff was without incident.

起飞一切正常。

Just before one-thirty in the morning, the plane broke out the clouds and the flight crew glimpsed lights off in the distance.

就在凌晨1点30分，飞机冲出云层，飞机上的空乘人员瞥了一眼来自外面的灯光。