WASHINGTON, Aug 7: The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has started a full-scale investigation into the crash of Korean Air (KAL) Flight 801 in Guam yesterday, in which more than 200 people died.

A KAL spokesman said in Seoul today that 29 people survived the crash. But, the Korea Broadcasting System reported that two of the injured survivors died of severe burns early today.

NTSB officials will analyze flight data recorded by the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the black box retrieved from the crashed jetliner, they said.

According to NTSB chairman Jim Hall, the South Korean Boeing 747-300 jetliner, carrying 254 passengers, was in normal landing position until shortly before it crashed in a restricted military zone in an area covered with dense shrubbery called Nimitz Hill, about five kilometre southwest of Agana Airport.

NTSB will look into the cause of the accident from a number of perspectives, the sources said.

There had been reports that a fire broke out inside the plane before the crash, but hall told a United States television network that air traffic controllers in Guam did not receive any such message from the plane.

Meanwhile in Seoul today, KAL today made a public apology for the air disaster as South Korean government officials rushed to contain the fallout.

``Korea Air expresses its deepest apologies to passengers on Flight 801 and their families,'' KAL vice president Lee Tae-Won said in a televised statement.

At a Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Koh Kun called for all-out government action to save the lives of remaining crash survivors.

Many survivors were in critical condition with multiple burns and fractures, and South Korean officials warned the death toll could rise. Lee promised to speed up the return of survivors and the bodies of victims from the Boeing 747-300 crash on the US Pacific island.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.