Bart Meyer
(Reuters) – Uncertainty surrounds South Korea’s deadliest crash, experts said on Sunday, casting doubt on initial suggestions that a Jeju Air flight may have been brought down by a bird strike.
The apparent lack of landing gear, the timing of the twin-engine Boeing 737-800’s belly landing at Muan International Airport and reports of a possible bird strike have raised questions that remain unanswered.
News you can trust and daily fun, right in your inbox
Experience it firsthand — The Yodel is your go-to source for daily news, entertainment and light-hearted stories.
Footage shown by local media showed the single-aisle plane taxiing down the runway with no visible landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flames and debris.
“Why didn’t the fire trucks lay foam on the runway? Why weren’t they there when the plane landed? Why did the plane land so far down the runway? Why was there a brick wall at the end of the runway?” Runway? Aviation News Editor Jeffrey Thomas said.
South Korean officials said they are investigating the cause of the crash of Jeju Air flight 7C2216, including a possible bird strike. The accident killed 179 of the 181 people on board.
A spokesman for Jeju Air could not immediately be reached for comment. Jeju Air declined to comment on the cause of the accident at a press conference, saying an investigation was ongoing.
Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically include the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, where the plane was designed and built, within the scope of the investigation.
The flight data recorder was discovered at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), about two and a half hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder was discovered at 2:24 p.m., according to South Korea’s Transport Ministry.
“This gives you all the parameters of all the systems of the aircraft. The heartbeat of the aircraft is recorded on the flight data recorder,” Thomas said. “The recorder may provide the most interesting analysis of how this tragic accident occurred.”
Experts warn that aviation accidents are often caused by multiple factors and it could take months to piece together the sequence of events that occurred inside and outside the aircraft.
series of events
Within minutes, a bird strike warning sounded from the control tower and the pilot declared a distress call and then attempted to land, but it was unclear whether the plane hit any birds, officials said.
Experts said it seemed unlikely that a bird strike caused the landing gear failure.
“Bird strikes are not uncommon, and landing gear problems are not uncommon. Bird strikes occur much more frequently, but typically they do not result in the loss of an aircraft by themselves,” Thomas said.
“I’ve never seen a bird strike prevent the landing gear from extending,” Qantas aviation safety expert Geoffrey Dyer said.
Qantas consultant Trevor Jensen said fire and emergency services normally prepare for belly landings “so this appears to be unplanned”.
Dyer said if a flock of birds were sucked into a CFM International aircraft engine, a bird strike could affect the engine, but it would not shut down the engine immediately, giving pilots some time to deal with the situation.
Dyer and Jensen said it was unclear why the plane did not slow down after hitting the runway.
Typically in a belly landing, “you’re going to land on the engine, and you’re going to have a bumpy ride,” Thomas said.
“You come in with minimal fuel, you have fire trucks present, you cover the runway with foam, and then you land at the far end of the runway, which is generally good.”
Transportation Department officials said the pilot attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction after the control tower issued a bird strike warning and the pilot declared a distress call.
“During landing, it hit a navigation safety feature called a locator and collided with a wall,” the official said.
Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan said the runway length of 2,800 meters was not a factor and that the walls at both ends were built in accordance with standards.
“There are safety zones and green buffer zones at both ends of the runway before reaching the outer wall. The airport is designed according to standard aviation safety guidelines, even if the wall appears to be closer than it actually is,” he told a separate briefing.
The ministry said the captain had served at this level since 2019 and had flown 6,823 hours. The first officer has held this rank since 2023 and has flown approximately 1,650 hours.
The Boeing 737-800 involved in the crash is one of the world’s most frequently flown passenger aircraft, has a good safety record and was developed long before the MAX was involved in the recent Boeing safety crisis.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Lisa Barrington Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Josh Smith and Tim Hepher Editing by William Mallard and Frances Kerry)
