In the morning of 29 December 2024, local time, a passenger plane of Jeju Air in South Korea deviated from the runway at Muan International Airport in Jeolla South Province, collided with the airport wall and exploded and caught fire. The accident caused a total of 179 deaths, and the scene was horrible.
The passenger plane involved carried a total of 181 people, including 175 passengers and 6 crew members. It was finally confirmed that only 2 crew members survived and the remaining 179 people died.
Pictures from the scene show that the passenger plane was severely damaged, the fuselage was broken into two parts, and except for the tail part, the rest was burned out.
After the incident, the authorities dispatched more than 1,500 emergency personnel to participate in the search and rescue work, including 490 firefighters and 455 police officers, who searched various parts of the plane around the runway to find survivors and dig out the victims.
According to South Korean media such as news1 and the Korea Daily, Lee Jin-cheol (transliteration), director of the Busan Local Aviation Administration, briefed at the airport in the early morning of December 30, saying, "There are almost no complete bodies, and many limbs and torsos are damaged and difficult to put together."
Several firefighters said that due to the collision and the fire, the bodies were severely damaged, and the scene was "very tragic and terrible." One of the firefighters said that the scene was really devastating, with aircraft wreckage, passenger remains and charred things mixed together.
Why did the plane make an emergency landing without lowering the landing gear? The Jeju Air crash is full of doubts
Image : On 30 December 2024, firefighters worked next to the wreckage of a passenger plane at Muan International Airport. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
A major accident occurred during the landing of a Jeju Air passenger plane in South Korea yesterday (29 December), causing 179 deaths and 2 injuries. It is the worst air crash in the world in the past 6 years and the air crash with the highest death toll in South Korea in the past 30 years. Why the plane did not lower the landing gear during the emergency landing, the flaps were not in the extended state for landing, the severity of the bird strike, and even why there was a hard wall at the end of the runway will become the focus of the investigation.
Zhu Zhonghuan, director of the Aviation Policy Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of South Korea, said at a press conference on the 29th that the tower of Muan International Airport issued a bird strike warning to the passenger plane at around 8:57 am, and at 8:58 am, the captain sent a distress signal.
Zhu Zhonghuan also said that the passenger plane tried to land on Runway 19 at about 9 am, but at around 9:03 am, the passenger plane landed on its belly without lowering the landing gear and hit the airport wall. (Click to watch the relevant video)
Central News Agency quoted the Wall Street Journal as reporting that the crashed Boeing 737-800 flight of Jeju Air slid off the runway during landing, hit the concrete wall after sliding at high speed and exploded. Before landing, the tower warned of a possible bird strike, and the pilot sent a distress signal. Aviation safety experts said that if the bird strike is serious, it may cause both engines to fail and the landing gear to be paralyzed. The video shows that the landing gear was not lowered when the plane touched the ground.
Aviation safety experts said the focus of accident investigators should be on the extent of the impact of the bird strike on the engine and why the pilot did not lower the landing gear.
John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and 737 pilot, said investigators will look into whether the bird strike caused one or both engines to fail, as well as the size and number of birds sucked in.
Cox said: "The plane can still fly normally with only one engine, and the crew has also received such training. Normally (when encountering problems) they should follow the normal procedures and complete all the inspection steps, but they did not do so. They rushed directly to the runway, which also makes me wonder whether the second engine was working normally at the time?"
The Washington Post also quoted Cox as saying that if the bird strike caused both engines to fail, the crew might not have enough time to land the plane.
He said: "(Bird strikes cause the destruction of both engines) This situation has happened, but it is extremely rare." Cox was referring to the 2009 Hudson River miracle. At that time, US Airways Flight 1549 lost power due to a bird strike, and the pilot chose to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York. All 155 people on board survived, and it was later made into a movie.
The Wall Street Journal quoted Jeff Guzzetti, who had served as an accident investigator at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as saying that there were backup steps and inspections to deal with the failure of the landing gear to be lowered. Guzzetti, who is now an aviation safety consultant, said frankly that he was puzzled as to why Jeju Air ended in a major air crash yesterday.
Guzti said: "If the landing gear could not be lowered at that time, why not continue to fly around and use up the remaining fuel? I didn't see them calling emergency personnel for rescue."
Hiroshi Sugie, a former Japan Airlines pilot who has written many books on aviation safety, said that there are various waters around Muan International Airport, which means that the pilot can choose to land on the sea, but the pilot seems to have chosen the most dangerous landing method. "There are too many mistakes in this. Belly landing is definitely a last resort."
The Washington Post pointed out that the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that both black boxes (flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder) of the crashed flight have been found; relevant Korean authorities refuted the outside world's claim that the 2,800-meter runway at Muan Airport was too short to cause the air crash.
Guzti said that it is unlikely that a bird strike alone would cause such a catastrophic accident. The pilot may not have realized that the landing gear was not lowered, because modern aircraft can be completed manually when the hydraulic system fails. He also said the flaps of the crashed plane were not deployed (if the plane intends to make an emergency landing, the flaps are usually deployed to slow down and stabilize the plane), and the airport did not seem to be prepared for an emergency landing.
AFP reported that experts who analyzed the Jeju Air landing crash video also pointed the finger at the airport facilities. Kim Kwang-il, a professor of aviation science at Busan Shilla University and a former pilot, said he was sad to see the video of the plane crashing into a wall after the emergency landing.
"There shouldn't be a strong structure in that area," Kim told AFP. "Normally, there wouldn't be such a strong obstacle at the bottom of the runway, which is against international aviation safety standards. Airports usually have only soft fences outside, which don't cause major damage. The plane could have slid to a natural stop, and the unnecessary structure is very regrettable because it was that inexplicable structure that caused the plane to explode and catch fire after it hit."
Experts said that it would take several months to determine the relevant questions and the exact cause of the air crash, including the pilot's immediate handling, why the emergency response procedures failed to provide protection, weather conditions and even whether there were any deficiencies in aircraft maintenance. All of these need to be investigated in detail, and the outside world should not jump to conclusions at this time. Accidents usually have multiple causes, some of which are not immediately apparent. The information circulated at the time of the air crash is usually insufficient or even incorrect, and preliminary conclusions are often overturned afterwards.
The American Transportation Safety Council said they are leading a team including personnel from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing to cooperate with South Korean investigators.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), the Jeju Air crash yesterday killed 179 people, making it the worst air crash in South Korea in nearly 30 years. It surpassed the Voepass crash in Brazil in August this year, which killed 62 people, becoming the air crash with the highest number of casualties this year and since the Lion Air crash in the Java Sea in 2018. The Lion Air crash killed 181 people at the time and caused the Boeing 737 MAX to be grounded worldwide, severely damaging Boeing's reputation.
South Korea air crash: Other possible causes besides bird strike?
A major air crash occurred at South Korea's Muan Airport on Sunday. The initial cause of the accident may be a bird strike. Some people also believe that it was a landing gear failure or the runway was too short, etc. The detailed cause is still under further investigation.
A Boeing 737-800 passenger plane of Jeju Air lost control during landing and finally hit the wall and exploded into fragments. The scene was horrible. A total of 179 people died in the accident at South Korea's Muan Airport, and only 2 people survived, making it the air crash with the highest number of deaths in South Korea's history.
The detailed cause of the accident is still under investigation, but bird strike is one of the possible reasons. The South Korean government confirmed that a bird strike warning was issued to the passenger plane before the accident.
South Korean aviation safety policy officer Yoo Kyung-soo said: "The plane received landing permission at 54 minutes and attempted to land for the first time. Then at 57 minutes, it received a bird warning and had to climb and re-enter the airport after a problem occurred."
However, one minute after receiving the warning, the captain sent a distress signal to the tower, and then tried to land for the second time without lowering the landing gear, and ended up hitting the wall inside the airport. Experts analyzed that the key cause of the accident may have occurred very suddenly.
Gregory Alegi, professor and aviation expert at Louis University: "For example, emergency services will be on call, they will lay fire foam on the runway, they will do all kinds of things. We don't see this in the picture. This makes us imagine that the landing may be hasty, and there is not much time between the accident and the decision to land."
Marco Chan, senior lecturer and former pilot at Buckinghamshire New University: "There may be two situations. One is that the landing gear was directly hit when it was initially lowered. It may have hit the landing gear, which may have caused the landing gear door to get stuck, so the landing gear could not be extended. It may also hit the engine and damage the hydraulic equipment. Note that the landing gear is very heavy, and it relies on hydraulics to extend the landing gear."
In addition, the runway of Muan Airport is only about 2,800 meters, making it one of the smallest airports in South Korea but the runway is being expanded and actually needs to be shortened by about 300 metres. There are also voices from the outside world questioning that the runway is too short or that the temporary fence is set up in an inappropriate location. The South Korean government denied this, emphasizing that other airports in the country have similar facilities and do not believe that the short runway is the cause of the accident.
There are about 4,400 Boeing 737-800s in service worldwide, accounting for about 15% of the world's passenger aircraft. The aircraft that crashed this time was 15 years old and had not exceeded its service life. The captain and co-pilot had 6,823 hours and 1,650 hours of flying experience respectively, and they were also quite experienced in operating the 737-800. Jeju Air had not had a major air crash before. The black box on the plane is now partially damaged, and the interpretation work may take at least a month.
During the aftermath of flight 7C2216 crash, another flight returned to Seoul due to abnormal landing gear
A passenger plane of Jeju Air, a South Korean low-cost airline, took off from Gimpo Airport in Seoul at 6.37 am on 30 December 2024. On the way to Jeju, the landing gear had an unknown problem, and then turned back and landed safely at Gimpo Airport.
This Jeju Air flight 7C101 and the plane that crashed yesterday (29th) are both Boeing B737-800 models. The flight attendant informed 161 passengers of the mechanical failure caused by the landing gear problem, and then returned to Gimpo Airport at 7:25 am. Jeju Air plans to take off again after replacing the aircraft.
The landing gear is an important device closely related to flight safety. It can ensure the safe takeoff and landing of the aircraft and reduce the impact force during emergency landing.
Yesterday, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 carrying 181 people ran off the runway and hit the guardrail when landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea from Bangkok, Thailand. According to Yonhap News Agency, 179 people on the plane died and only 2 survived.
At the time of the Jeju Air crash, it is believed that all three landing gears did not function properly.
Jeju Air has 41 aircraft, of which 39 are Boeing B737-800s.
