At that time, the weather conditions in Mokpo and Yeongam County area consisted of heavy rain and wind.

[5] At 15:50, the wreckage was found near Masanri, Haenam County, South Jeolla Province, about 10 km (6.2 mi; 5.4 nmi) southwest of Mokpo Airport.

The news was reported by two surviving passengers who escaped from the wreckage and ran to the Hwawon-myeon branch of the village below the mountain.

Mokpo Airport was equipped with only VOR/DME, resulting in pilots performing excessive landing attempts in some cases, and was a contributing cause of the accident.

[7] A prosecutor in charge of investigating the accident concluded that the aircraft, having disappeared from the normal flight route, had made an unintentional landing with the pilots having misunderstood the situation.

Chung Jong-hwan, the director general of the Ministry of Transportation, said that captain Hwang's actions caused the crash.

An inquiry found pilot error was the cause of the crash when the plane began a descent while it was still passing over a mountain peak.

According to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), captain Hwang flew the aircraft below the minimum safe altitude (1,600 ft (490 m)), as he said, "okay, eight hundred [feet]," a few seconds before impact.

[13] As of August 2024, Asiana Airlines still uses the flight number 733 but on the late evening Seoul-Incheon–Hanoi route utilizing two types of aircraft: Boeing 777-28EER and Airbus A350-941.