The pilot of a passenger jet that crashed in South Korea on Sunday told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike while landing, transport officials revealed on Monday.
Pilots declared mayday following the strike and the Boeing 737-800 belly-landed, skidding off the end of the runway at Muan International Airport and erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a barrier.
All 175 passengers and four of the six crew on the Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from Bangkok, were killed shortly after 9am local time (midnight GMT) on Sunday. Two flight attendants were pulled out alive and taken to hospital in stable conditions.
Experts have questioned why the plane, which had no visible landing gear deployed, showed no sign of slowing down as it came in to land, as well as the presence of a solid barrier beyond the runway and the lack of fire trucks waiting at the scene.
Choi Sang-mok, South Korea’s acting president, on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation system as investigators worked to identify victims and find out what caused the deadliest air disaster in the country.
“Maintenance records of key systems such as engines and landing gear will be thoroughly reviewed for 101 aircraft operated by six airlines using the same model as the accident aircraft,” said Joo Jong-wan, the deputy minister for civil aviation, adding it would run to January 3.
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Credit: Lee Geun-young
Transportation ministry officials said the jet’s flight data recorder had been recovered but appeared to have sustained some damage on the outside and it was not yet clear whether the data was sufficiently intact to be analysed.
They later found the cockpit voice recorder, which they will use to gather information about the plane’s systems and events leading up to the crash.
While the control tower had warned the pilots that birds were spotted in the vicinity shortly before the strike occurred, and footage emerged online showing what appeared to be birds striking the engine, it is unclear if this was the primary cause of the disaster.
Officials are also investigating what role the localiser antenna, located at the end of the runway to help in landing, played in the crash, transport ministry officials told a media briefing.
David Learmount, a leading safety expert, told Sky News: “Not only is there no justification [for it to be there], I think it’s verging on criminal to have it there.”
He added that the pilot had brought the plane down well and there would have been a much higher survival rate had the barrier not been present.
“To have a hard object about 200m or less into the overrun, I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere ever before,” Mr Learmount said. “There was plenty of space for the aircraft to have slowed down, come to a halt.”
South Korea’s deputy minister for civil aviation said the barrier was a so-called localiser, which is a “ type of navigational aid”. “The specific foundation on which these devices are placed varies depending on the airport,” Mr Joo said, with no “standardised or uniform design.”
At Muan, like several other airports in South Korea, the localisers were on “piled-up soil, and concrete structures have been installed within these soil layers,” he said. “The connection between these localisers and the accident will be thoroughly examined during the investigation process,” he added.
Some experts have shed doubt on the theory that a bird strike could have caused the landing gear failure.
Geoffrey Dell, an Australian airline safety expert, said: “I’ve never seen a bird strike prevent the landing gear from being extended.”
Trevor Jensen, an Australian aviation consultant, also explained that emergency services are typically prepared for a belly landing.
Choi Kee-young, a professor from Inha University, told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency: “If you look at the video, the landing gear didn’t extend, and the plane crashed with very little loss of speed.
“An airplane has multiple brakes, and if the landing gear doesn’t work, the reverse-propelled engines lift the wing flaps, which act as air brakes. But they didn’t seem to have worked in this case.”
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Credit: South Korea MBC TV
Christian Beckert, a flight safety expert and Lufthansa pilot, said the video footage suggested that aside from the reversers, most of the plane’s braking systems were not activated, creating a “big problem” and a fast landing.
Mr Beckert said a bird strike was unlikely to have damaged the landing gear while it was still up, and that if it had happened when it was down, it would have been hard to raise again.
“It’s really, really very rare and very unusual not to lower the gear, because there are independent systems where we can lower the gear with an alternate system,” he said.
Bird strikes have been a major concern for airports and aviation agencies for years. In the US, wildlife strikes cause more than $900 million in damage to aircraft each year and have resulted in more than 250 fatalities since 1988.
Data from the US Federal Aviation Administration and agriculture department show that bird strikes on planes are becoming more frequent. From 1990 to 2023, there were 296,613 wildlife strikes globally, most of which were bird strikes. In 2023 alone, 19,603 strikes were recorded with 3.6 per cent causing damage.
To reduce the risks, airports normally implement several strategies, such as adjusting flight schedules to avoid peak bird activity, managing nearby habitats to deter birds, and using non-lethal methods like bird hazing or removal.
Radar systems are also used to detect bird activity along flight paths, providing pilots with key information to avoid potential hazards. Efforts to reduce bird strikes have been implemented at many airports since the 1990s.
On Monday morning, investigators were trying to identify some of the last remaining victims, as anguished families waited inside the Muan airport terminal.
The crash killed mostly local residents who were returning from holidays in Thailand, while two Thai nationals also died.
Park Han-shin, who lost his brother in the crash, said he was told by authorities that his brother had been identified, but he has not been able to see his body.
