NOS News•today, 12:07
Much is still unclear about the cause of the plane crash in South Korea. At least 177 of the 181 passengers were killed today. The images of the accident are “very striking”, says aviation expert Joris Melkert.
The aircraft slides over the runway at high speed without landing gear. The plane heads towards the end of the airport, which is cordoned off with a wall. Google Earth shows that just in front of the wall is a meters-high earthen wall into which the plane collides.
“The big question is why that earth wall was there,” says Melkert. “Airports are usually flat, with a run-off area. Then the plane could have easily slipped.”
Off the radar
The aircraft of the South Korean airline Jeju Air with flight number 7C2216 came from the Thai capital Bangkok. Radar images show that the plane approached the airport from the south. But a few minutes before landing, the plane disappeared from radar. “Maybe things have broken or turned off,” says Melkert.
In the images of the landing, the plane is no longer coming from the south, but from the north. South Korean authorities said the pilot had been instructed by air traffic control to land in the opposite direction to avoid the plane colliding with birds. The pilots are said to have followed that order.
But after instructions from air traffic control, the pilots sent a distress signal, South Korean authorities say. It is not yet known what prompted the emergency signal. A minute later the plane tried to land.
Images of the crash at Muan airport:
The moment the plane crashes in South Korea
The landing gear was not deployed during landing. Melkert finds this difficult to explain. Normally this is done with power from the engines, he explains. According to him, it could be that many birds flew into the engines, causing the engines to no longer be able to deploy the landing gear.
“But then there are many emergency procedures,” says Melkert. “If the engines have failed, there is still an auxiliary engine. Otherwise, you can unfold a windmill to generate power. If that doesn’t work either, you can let the landing gear unfold under its own weight; then you just throw open the hatches .”
None of that happened. “Then you wonder: what happened there? Was there no more time?”
Safety record
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-Bae said at a press conference about the crash that there had been no indications of problems with the plane, which was built in 2009. Jeju Air had so far “had a good safety record“, says Melkert. “There are no other strange cases known.”
The black box has now been found at the crash site. This device contains the flight data and audio recordings from the cockpit, which are important for answering all questions. The black box is being investigated by a team from the Korean government.
Fatal crash
The crash in South Korea is one of the deadliest plane crashes in the country in recent decades. In 1997, 228 people were killed in a plane crash in South Korea.
It doesn’t happen often that things go so wrong after the plane has landed. In 2007, a plane went off the runway in Sao Paulo, crashed into a gas station and ended up burning in an office building. All 187 people on board were killed, as were twelve people on the ground.
