The Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 is a widely used plane and often used by budget airlines like Ryanair.
Credit: Pixabay
A team of investigators from the United States and from Boeing have examined the South Korean plane crash site for clues into what caused the tragic accident.
Out of the Jeju Air flight’s 181 passengers, only two survived the crash at South Korea‘s Muan International Airport.
Video footage of the accident clearly shows the plane overshoot the runway and crash land without its landing gear deployed before colliding with a concrete barrier and bursting into flames.
The Boeing 737-800 is one of the world’s most popular aircraft, with around 4,400 in service worldwide and has a good safety record. The Boeing 737-800 predates the 737-Max, a type of Boeing plane which was involved in fatal plane crashes in 2018 and 2019.
The team of investigators will spend five days at the site examining the evidence including the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. However, a full investigation could take longer than a year.
At the moment, the main theories about what caused the crash relate to the fact that the plane’s landing gear and wing flaps had obviously not been deployed. According to John Hangman, an aviation expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, these issues could have been caused by a fault in the plane’s electrical and hydraulic control systems.
Other theories suggest that the plane may have experienced engine trouble, perhaps as a result of a bird strike. According to South Korean officials, the control tower at Muan International Airport issued a bird warning to the plane shortly before its intended landing on Sunday.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, over 19,000 aircraft collisions with birds and other wildlife were reported in 2023 in the United States only. These incidents rarely cause serious problems as aircraft are tested to be able to withstand them without being damaged.
However, an air safety investigator with the Federal Aviation Administration commented to CNBC that a bird strike at the low altitude the Jeju Air flight was at whilst preparing for landing could have meant there wasn’t time for emergency checklists to be followed.
A safety issue that may likely have increased the death toll from the accident was the concrete barrier which the plane hit as it overshot the runway. This solid wall was located just a few hundred feet from the end of the runway. South Korean officials are said to be looking into whether airports should construct this type of barrier with materials that would break easily upon impact.
