[7] At 1215 Yukon Standard Time,[a] Flight 59 was cleared from Anchorage to Kenai in accordance with its filed flight plan; however, clearance delivery told the pilot to expect a delay until 1244 due to the heavy fog covering the airport, so the pilot shut down the aircraft and he and his passengers deplaned temporarily.

After reboarding and recontacting the tower at 1234, Flight 59 was delayed for about an hour at its parking location due to the continued dense fog, before finally requesting and receiving a taxi clearance around 1339 as visibility began to improve.

[1][2][5] At 1405:28, the Anchorage tower controller cleared SCA59 to taxi into position and hold on runway 6L, as the RVR had risen to the required 1,800 feet; 50 seconds later, at 1406:18, KAL084 radioed that it was starting its takeoff roll.

After realizing that the lights were in fact from an aircraft on its takeoff roll, he ducked down low and yelled for his passengers to do the same.

[1][2][3][4][5][9] Three of the passengers on board SCA59 received minor injuries, while the remaining passengers and the pilot were uninjured, although the aircraft was destroyed by the impact (the left and right wings were sheared off by the DC-10's main landing gear, while the DC-10's nose gear caved in the right side of the cockpit roof and then tore off part of the PA-31's vertical stabilizer);[1][3][5][9] the three flight crew of KAL084 were seriously injured by impact forces, but managed to escape their aircraft before it was consumed by fire.

)[9] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.