South Korea -- Plane carrying 181 crashes off runs off runway, 179 dead. 29 Dec 2024

[JennieM]

The latest from Muan airport, as investigation continues
​

IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS
It's just turned 20:15 local time in South Korea. Here's the latest:

• Officials examine debris: Investigations are continuing into the night at Muan International Airport in South Korea, following a Jeju Air plane crash in which 179 people died
• Families' frustration: Family members are gathered at the airport waiting for the bodies of their loved ones to be released - recovery teams say they are taking their time to avoid making any mistakes
• Calls for support: A representative for the bereaved families, who also lost his brother in the crash, is pushing for more support from the country's government and airline Jeju Air
• Mood is muted: The atmosphere in the airport is one of "deep devastation...grief, shock", according to a South Korean journalist - the BBC's Jake Kwon describes it as "muted and sombre"
• Unanswered questions: A bird strike has been identified as a possible factor in the deadly collision - but many questions remain over exactly what happened in the final minutes of the flight

South Korea plane crash latest: Crash victims' families criticise lack of updates as investigators search plane debris

Some 179 people were killed in the Jeju Air crash in South Korea on Sunday, with the precise cause still unclear.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Justice101]

3 main questions:
1) Looks like the hydraulic lines are on the front of the wheel assemblies so a bird strike down there could sever the lines and cause total loss of pressure and ability to keep wheels down thru the hydraulics. Might not be time to manually lower and not sure they can lock them down without any hydraulics functioning. A bird strike to an engine (which appears in a video) would not necessarily affect the initial landing, but might stop them from making a fly around.

2) Why land in that direction with a wall in place? Only thing I can think of is they had no choice but to land right then and there or crash trying a fly around. Bird strike on engine and landing gear at same time? Regardless, without that wall in place, this would have been mostly survivable. I can't image air traffic or the pilots did not know about that.

3) This doesn't sound like a Boeing problem. The plane was reportedly 15 years old with lots of required checks and maintenance on the wheel assemblies and systems.

Just my semi-educated opinion.

Facts and black box will tell the whole story.

So very sad for the victims.

 

[iamshadow21]

Unfortunately, I think identification is going to be very challenging. Jet fuel burns very hot. A plane crash dismembers human beings at the best of times, but the impact plus the fire is going to mean this is a long, complicated job for forensic anthropologists and DNA. It is going to take time, and I don't think general members of the public, grieving families, understand just how drawn out this is likely to be. It would be a greater atrocity to just distribute bodies or body parts without making sure. Some are probably going to be damaged enough to need specialised testing to even get DNA. It's going to be weeks, at minimum, and they may have to call for help from experts from overseas. There are only so many forensic anthropologists out there, and fewer still who can work effectively (and legally) in a country where the locals speak another language. This is a mass casualty situation with almost two hundred dead. It's a lot of work, and people waiting anxiously for the return of remains of their loved ones aren't going to understand why it's going to take that long without understanding the work that has to happen.

MOO

 

[Justice101]

I just watched the video again multiple times and here are my observations:
1) The plane touched down at least halfway down the runway.
2) The flaps were not down as would be typical for a landing...creating much faster ground speed.. perhaps 50 to 75 knots faster than ideal.
3) The landing gear did not collapse, it was not down at all. On a 737, there are 3 green lights when all 3 wheels are down and they are red when they are not fully down or up. So the pilots knew the landing gear was not down.
4) The engines did not (or were not able) to redirect the engine thrust. It takes many minutes for engines to speed down due to rotational force so the thrust was pushing the plane forward. With no brakes (obviously due to no wheels) and the engines continuing to spin and thrust the plane forward, there was no way with half a runway to stop on its own.

Those poor people.

This one is really hard to figure out.

They would not have landed if they knew the landing gear wasn't down and they had control over the plane even with one engine out. Planes are designed and pilots are trained to do take offs and fly arounds with only 1 engine. I wonder if both engines were bird strikes.

This has got to be a combination of bird strike, hydraulics, and decision making.... or intentional which I highly highly doubt

 

[Charlot123]

I just watched the video again multiple times and here are my observations:
1) The plane touched down at least halfway down the runway.
2) The flaps were not down as would be typical for a landing...creating much faster ground speed.. perhaps 50 to 75 knots faster than ideal.
3) The landing gear did not collapse, it was not down at all. On a 737, there are 3 green lights when all 3 wheels are down and they are red when they are not fully down or up. So the pilots knew the landing gear was not down.
4) The engines did not (or were not able) to redirect the engine thrust. It takes many minutes for engines to speed down due to rotational force so the thrust was pushing the plane forward. With no brakes (obviously due to no wheels) and the engines continuing to spin and thrust the plane forward, there was no way with half a runway to stop on its own.

Those poor people.

This one is really hard to figure out.

They would not have landed if they knew the landing gear wasn't down and they had control over the plane even with one engine out. Planes are designed and pilots are trained to do take offs and fly arounds with only 1 engine. I wonder if both engines were bird strikes.

This has got to be a combination of bird strike, hydraulics, and decision making.... or intentional which I highly highly doubt

Keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll extract maximum information from the black boxes.

Might it have been a potentially survivable situation that looked far worse than it was, from either the cabin or the cockpit and hence, increased the panic?

To add, the preceding week was very difficult for Korea and it might have contributed to the general level of pilots’ nervousness.

 

[Charlot123]

The latest

“Leading air safety expert David Learmount told Sky News the collision with the wall that supported a guidance system at the end of the runway was the "defining moment" of the disaster.”

“Verging on the criminal”, very harsh words

South Korea: Expert says concrete wall plane crashed into is 'verging on criminal'

There were just two survivors, while 179 people were killed in the country's worst aviation disaster.

news.sky.com

 

[Moonchild90]

Unfortunately, I think identification is going to be very challenging. Jet fuel burns very hot. A plane crash dismembers human beings at the best of times, but the impact plus the fire is going to mean this is a long, complicated job for forensic anthropologists and DNA. It is going to take time, and I don't think general members of the public, grieving families, understand just how drawn out this is likely to be. It would be a greater atrocity to just distribute bodies or body parts without making sure. Some are probably going to be damaged enough to need specialised testing to even get DNA. It's going to be weeks, at minimum, and they may have to call for help from experts from overseas. There are only so many forensic anthropologists out there, and fewer still who can work effectively (and legally) in a country where the locals speak another language. This is a mass casualty situation with almost two hundred dead. It's a lot of work, and people waiting anxiously for the return of remains of their loved ones aren't going to understand why it's going to take that long without understanding the work that has to happen.

MOO

Absolutely agree, just thinking about Smoleńsk tragedy in 2010, and how long it took to identify everyone.
Mistakes had been made and remains of victims had been mixed up. Just horrific

Poland air crash probe: Remains of ex-president mixed up - BBC News

Poland finds parts of two other bodies in ex-president Kaczynski's coffin, in an air crash inquiry.

www.bbc.co.uk

"What this painful and shameful discovery shows is that the autopsies on the victims' remains, carried out in Russia in the days after the crash, were inadequate, rushed and flawed. Correctly identifying the victims of a plane crash is difficult. Experts reckon it can take up to a month, due to the massive impact and extent of injuries. In this case, dozens of sealed coffins returned to Poland within five days of the disaster."

 

[ASipowicz]

NYT article that shows just how far down the runway the plane landed. I'm wondering ... even if they had first touched down at the far north end of the runway would the outcome had been the same? I'm thinking there still wouldn't have been enough "contact" with the ground to slow down the plane much, especially at that speed.

South Korean Plane Crash Questions Center on Four Fateful Minutes

 

[imstilla.grandma]

John Hansman, an aviation expert at MIT, said the crash was most likely the result of a problem with the plane's hydraulic control systems. He said that would be consistent with the landing gear and wing flaps not being deployed "and might indicate a control issue which would explain the rush to get on the ground."

U.S., Boeing investigators examine site of deadly South Korean plane crash

All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday's crash

ny1.com

 

[Justice101]

IMO at this point based on everything I have read or seen, it looks like the cause was a combination of 5 things happening all at once in a short period of time:

1) Bird strike on one (or both) engines.
2) Fly over and then swing immediately around to land in opposite direction (leading to going in direction of the ILS barrier)
3) Landing halfway down runway.
4) Landing with wing flaps retracted and no landing gear (hence, way too much speed to dissipate).
5) ILS barrier. The airport is small and relatively new. Why have such a barrier to protect ILS equipment?

To me the crew had to have a reason for landing so quickly (in the wrong direction) after the fly by and not putting down landing gear or flaps. Were they losing all altitude because of no thrust at all and worried about making the runway by just gliding? Did they accidentally shut down the wrong engine or were both engines out from bird strikes similar to what happened to US Air in Hudson 15 years ago?

What we don't know is what was and what wasn't functioning for the pilots in the cockpit as far as mechanical systems are concerned (engines, landing gear, flaps, etc.)

Regardless, like 90% of plane crashes with black boxes and lots of information from dissecting the crash components, they will get to the bottom of this and hopefully reduce the chance of something like this happening again.

There is a reason why air travel is so safe. Improved technology, pilot training and accident investigations.

There are 100,000 commercial flights every day. You would have to fly every day for 10,000 years to have the same chances of dying in a plane crash.... as dying in car crash in your lifetime.

 

[iamshadow21]

IMO at this point based on everything I have read or seen, it looks like the cause was a combination of 5 things happening all at once in a short period of time:

1) Bird strike on one (or both) engines.
2) Fly over and then swing immediately around to land in opposite direction (leading to going in direction of the ILS barrier)
3) Landing halfway down runway.
4) Landing with wing flaps retracted and no landing gear (hence, way too much speed to dissipate).
5) ILS barrier. The airport is small and relatively new. Why have such a barrier to protect ILS equipment?

To me the crew had to have a reason for landing so quickly (in the wrong direction) after the fly by and not putting down landing gear or flaps. Were they losing all altitude because of no thrust at all and worried about making the runway by just gliding? Did they accidentally shut down the wrong engine or were both engines out from bird strikes similar to what happened to US Air in Hudson 15 years ago?

What we don't know is what was and what wasn't functioning for the pilots in the cockpit as far as mechanical systems are concerned (engines, landing gear, flaps, etc.)

Regardless, like 90% of plane crashes with black boxes and lots of information from dissecting the crash components, they will get to the bottom of this and hopefully reduce the chance of something like this happening again.

There is a reason why air travel is so safe. Improved technology, pilot training and accident investigations.

There are 100,000 commercial flights every day. You would have to fly every day for 10,000 years to have the same chances of dying in a plane crash.... as dying in car crash in your lifetime.

I can't help but wonder if it was a similar failure to Flight 232. Everything we're learning about it reminds me of it so strongly.

In that case, they were able to pull off a miracle landing, saving many of the passengers and crew, but they ended up in a cornfield, due to no obstruction at the end of the runway. Many survivors were found in or, if ambulatory, walked out of the cornfield.

United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

MOO

 

[Justice101]

I can't help but wonder if it was a similar failure to Flight 232. Everything we're learning about it reminds me of it so strongly.

In that case, they were able to pull off a miracle landing, saving many of the passengers and crew, but they ended up in a cornfield, due to no obstruction at the end of the runway. Many survivors were found in or, if ambulatory, walked out of the cornfield.

United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

MOO

Very true! good point

Russia was infamous for constructing airports that if you ran off them, you went into a ravine or barrier. A corn field would have saved the vast majority of these people. I looked at the margins after the runways and yes, the plane would have eventually skidded onto water or some rolling swells but would have been far superior and at a slower speed.

 

[iamshadow21]

Very true! good point

Russia was infamous for constructing airports that if you ran off them, you went into a ravine or barrier. A corn field would have saved the vast majority of these people. I looked at the margins after the runways and yes, the plane would have eventually skidded onto water or some rolling swells but would have been far superior and at a slower speed.

It's not just the landing that makes me think of 232. 232 lost an engine, part of which severed the hydraulic lines for all flight controls, including landing gear. They essentially had to belly down a jumbo, on a too short, closed runway while flying in circles. It was called the impossible landing because it was unable to be reproduced in simulation. Until Sully landed on the Hudson, it was probably the most famous emergency landing against all odds in commercial aviation.

If this flight had a similar constellation of damage, it would explain why they were so desperate to land. They would know about 232.

MOO

 

[Justice101]

It's not just the landing that makes me think of 232. 232 lost an engine, part of which severed the hydraulic lines for all flight controls, including landing gear. They essentially had to belly down a jumbo, on a too short, closed runway while flying in circles. It was called the impossible landing because it was unable to be reproduced in simulation. Until Sully landed on the Hudson, it was probably the most famous emergency landing against all odds in commercial aviation.

If this flight had a similar constellation of damage, it would explain why they were so desperate to land. They would know about 232.

MOO

That sounds true. The Flight 232 engine failure was I believe in that center tail engine (3 engine design) where the fragments hit key hydraulics in the tail section. On that flight, I think they could only turn right so they had to do big and small right hand turn circles on their approach to somehow try to line up with the runway. I agree, it was an amazing feat of flying just to get it onto the flat ground near the runway.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the Flight 232 Wiki write up. I had forgotten that there was a titanium defect created at manufacturing 15 years before that eventually causes a small crack to get bigger then fail causing the main fan blade base to completely fall apart thru centrifugal force with debris severing 2 hydraulic lines in the tail section.

This South Korean crash landing came right down the center of the runway with a picture perfect belly landing. I don't know who they would have been able to line up for the runway with wing alerions and flaps not working because of hydraulics but your theory is definitely viable. On closer inspection and I was wrong before: the engine thrust deflectors were open which would be the right thing to do to slow down the plane some. I looked those up and they are also hydraulic although that might be a separate system just within the engines themselves.

Sorry, I am just babbling.

This one is really complicated. The black boxes will tell the story.

 

[iamshadow21]

That sounds true. The Flight 232 engine failure was I believe in that center tail engine (3 engine design) where the fragments hit key hydraulics in the tail section. On that flight, I think they could only turn right so they had to do big and small right hand turn circles on their approach to somehow try to line up with the runway. I agree, it was an amazing feat of flying just to get it onto the flat ground near the runway.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the Flight 232 Wiki write up. I had forgotten that there was a titanium defect created at manufacturing 15 years before that eventually causes a small crack to get bigger then fail causing the main fan blade base to completely fall apart thru centrifugal force with debris severing 2 hydraulic lines in the tail section.

This South Korean crash landing came right down the center of the runway with a picture perfect belly landing. I don't know who they would have been able to line up for the runway with wing alerions and flaps not working because of hydraulics but your theory is definitely viable. On closer inspection and I was wrong before: the engine thrust deflectors were open which would be the right thing to do to slow down the plane some. I looked those up and they are also hydraulic although that might be a separate system just within the engines themselves.

Sorry, I am just babbling.

This one is really complicated. The black boxes will tell the story.

I should add, air disasters aren't my special interest. They're one of my mother's. Two of her favourite movies are Apollo 13 and Sully. She also regularly puts on these air and sea disasters shows that give me anxiety if I can hear them from the other room. But disasters were a feature of me growing up, back when there were only five channels and what mum wanted to watch, we watched. So I know a lot about them.

She also loves Charlton Heston. So, regularly, we watched videos taped from tv of The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and The Rescue of Flight 232. It's on YouTube, if you're interested. I haven't watched it in years, but I remember it as being excellent, and they used the actual footage of the crash for the landing, rather than special effects.

MOO

 

[whitelilac]

My daughter is presently on a local plane from Santiago to some small airport in Pantagonia, Chile, where she will be doing a 57 mile camping/hike in those mountains. Instead of being nervous about that trek, now I'm feeling anxious about the flight. I know, it's irrational.
And yesterday we had a near miss at LAX. Not really serious, but it could have been if the tower had not told the taxiing plane to stop. Reminds me of that horrifying Tenerife crash some years ago.

Near-miss between 2 planes at LAX caught on video

A near-miss between two planes at LAX was caught on a live broadcast and posted online.

abc7.com

 

[Charlot123]

My daughter is presently on a local plane from Santiago to some small airport in Pantagonia, Chile, where she will be doing a 57 mile camping/hike in those mountains. Instead of being nervous about that trek, now I'm feeling anxious about the flight. I know, it's irrational.
And yesterday we had a near miss at LAX. Not really serious, but it could have been if the tower had not told the taxiing plane to stop. Reminds me of that horrifying Tenerife crash some years ago.

Near-miss between 2 planes at LAX caught on video

A near-miss between two planes at LAX was caught on a live broadcast and posted online.

abc7.com

Good luck to your daughter, may she have a great flight and enjoy the trip!

 

[vls12345]

South Korea: Pre-flight checks found no issues, Jeju Air CEO says

Jeju Air says the plane that crashed in South Korea killing 179 people had passed a pre-flight inspection.

www.bbc.com

A pre-flight inspection of a Jeju Air passenger plane hours before it crashed in South Korea, killing 179 people, found "no issues", the airline has said.

"Nothing abnormal was noted with the landing gear," the airline's CEO Kim Yi-bae told a news conference in Seoul, as investigations continue into why the wheels were not down when it performed an emergency landing.

 

[vls12345]

South Korea air crash investigators extract black box data as grieving families mourn the victims

Grieving relatives of people killed in a plane crash in South Korea have visited the site to pay respects to their loved ones on New Year’s Day. Only two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air survived. The bereaved families visited the site Wednesday for the first time...

apnews.com

Grieving relatives of the victims of the South Korea plane crash gathered at the site to pay respects to their loved ones on New Year’s Day, as officials said they’ve extracted data from one of the retrieved black boxes to find the exact cause of the crash.

The Transport Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that it has completed works to extract data from the cockpit voice recorder — one of the two black boxes recovered from the wreckage. It said the data would be converted into audio files. A damaged flight data recorder will be sent to the United States for an analysis, the ministry added.

 

[warp3dwing]

That sounds true. The Flight 232 engine failure was I believe in that center tail engine (3 engine design) where the fragments hit key hydraulics in the tail section. On that flight, I think they could only turn right so they had to do big and small right hand turn circles on their approach to somehow try to line up with the runway. I agree, it was an amazing feat of flying just to get it onto the flat ground near the runway.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the Flight 232 Wiki write up. I had forgotten that there was a titanium defect created at manufacturing 15 years before that eventually causes a small crack to get bigger then fail causing the main fan blade base to completely fall apart thru centrifugal force with debris severing 2 hydraulic lines in the tail section.

This South Korean crash landing came right down the center of the runway with a picture perfect belly landing. I don't know who they would have been able to line up for the runway with wing alerions and flaps not working because of hydraulics but your theory is definitely viable. On closer inspection and I was wrong before: the engine thrust deflectors were open which would be the right thing to do to slow down the plane some. I looked those up and they are also hydraulic although that might be a separate system just within the engines themselves.

Sorry, I am just babbling.

This one is really complicated. The black boxes will tell the story.

The 737-800 has manual linkages between the control column and the control surfaces on the wing and tail. Normally, control is boosted by the hydraulics system, but the airplane can be flown without any hydraulics, albeit not as easily.

You’re right that the #2 (right side) engine appears to have reverse thrust deployed. That is hydraulically-powered and cannot be used any other way.

However, I have seen it suggested (however unlikely) that a bird strike might have possibly damaged the engine causing it to look like reverse thrust was selected. I have my doubts, but an open mind is needed for air crashes.

Another comment I’ve seen (from a 737 pilot) is that it looks like the #2 engine is still working, at least to some extent, as the aircraft enters ground effect. It does look like there is exhaust that is visually “warping” the terrain behind it.

In other words, not much about this makes sense.

They had hydraulics and engine thrust to perform a go-around (and retract the gear), but then immediately whip it around and land gear-up. What could have made a gear-up landing in a 737 seem like the best choice? It’s hard to imagine. A shut-down of the wrong engine without the altitude/time to do anything?