Jeju Air: What we all know concerning the South Korea airplane crash

Practically 180 folks died after a airplane crashed because it was touchdown in South Korea on the morning of Sunday 29 December.

Harrowing video footage reveals the Jeju Air airplane coming off the runway earlier than colliding with a barrier and bursting into flames at Muan Worldwide Airport.

The airplane, which was getting back from Bangkok, Thailand, was carrying 181 folks – 179 of whom have been killed. Two crew members have been rescued from the wreckage.

Authorities are investigating the reason for the crash, with hearth officers indicating a hen strike and unhealthy climate. Nevertheless consultants have warned the crash may have been attributable to numerous components.

Flight 7C2216 was a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, Korea’s hottest price range airline.

Air site visitors management authorised the airplane to land at Muan Worldwide Airport at about 08:54 (23:54 GMT) – simply three minutes earlier than issuing a warning about hen exercise within the space.

At 08:59, the pilot reported that the airplane had struck a hen, declaring “mayday mayday mayday” and “hen strike, hen strike, go-around”. The pilot then aborted the unique touchdown and requested permission to land from the wrong way.

Air site visitors management authorised the choice touchdown at 09:01 – and at 09:02 the airplane made contact with the bottom, coming down at roughly the midway level of the two,800m runway.

One video seems to point out the airplane touching down with out utilizing its wheels or another touchdown gear. It skidded down the runway, overshot it and crashed right into a wall, earlier than erupting into flames.

A witness informed the South Korean information company Yonhap they’d heard a “loud bang” adopted by a “collection of explosions”.

Movies from the scene present the airplane ablaze with smoke billowing into the sky. Hearth crews later extinguished the hearth.

The primary of two survivors was rescued from the crash at about 09:23, with the second being rescued from contained in the tail part of the airplane at about 09:50.

Lee Jeong-hyun, chief of the Muan hearth division, informed a televised briefing {that a} hen strike and unhealthy climate may need precipitated the crash – however that the precise trigger was nonetheless being investigated.

The flight and voice recorders from the airplane have been recovered, although Yonhap experiences that the previous was broken.

An investigator informed the information company that the black packing containers may take as much as a month to decode.

One passenger on the flight messaged a relative, saying {that a} hen had been “caught within the wing” and that the airplane couldn’t land, native media reported.

Officers, nevertheless, haven’t confirmed whether or not the airplane did truly collide with any birds.

The pinnacle of Jeju Air’s administration stated that the crash was not as a consequence of “any upkeep points”, Yonhap reported.

The South Korean transport division stated that the top pilot on the flight had held the function since 2019 and had greater than 6,800 hours of flight expertise.

Geoffrey Thomas, an aviation knowledgeable and editor of Airline Information, informed the BBC that South Korea and its airways have been thought-about “trade greatest follow” and that each the plane and the airline had an “glorious security document”.

Mr Thomas individually informed Reuters information company that he was sceptical {that a} hen strike alone may have precipitated the crash.

“A hen strike isn’t uncommon. Issues with an undercarriage will not be uncommon. Chook strikes occur much more usually, however sometimes they do not trigger the lack of an airplane by themselves,” he stated.

The airplane was carrying 175 passengers and 6 crew. Two of the passengers have been Thai and the remaining are believed to have been South Korean, authorities have stated. Many are thought to have been getting back from a Christmas vacation in Thailand.

The official dying toll stands at 179 – making it the deadliest airplane crash on South Korean soil.

All of the passengers and 4 members of crew died.

Authorities have thus far recognized 174 our bodies and are nonetheless checking the remaining 5 “as a consequence of DNA inconsistencies”, in accordance with Yonhap.

Officers have been gathering saliva samples from members of the family gathered at Muan Airport to assist determine our bodies of victims. Different victims have been recognized by their fingerprints.

5 of the individuals who died have been kids underneath the age of 10. The youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78, authorities stated, citing the passenger manifest.

“I can not imagine your complete household has simply disappeared,” Maeng Gi-Su, 78, whose nephew and grand-nephews have been on the flight, informed the BBC. “My coronary heart aches a lot.”

South Korea’s Nationwide Hearth Company stated two members of the flight crew – a person and a lady – had survived the crash.

The person has woken up and is “totally capable of talk,” in accordance with Yonhap, which cites the director of the Seoul hospital the place he’s being handled.

Greater than 1,500 emergency personnel have been deployed as a part of restoration efforts, together with 490 hearth workers and 455 cops. They’ve been looking out the realm across the runway for elements of the airplane and those that have been onboard.

Performing President Choi Sang-mok has has ordered an emergency security inspection of the nation’s complete airline operations.

Muan has additionally been declared a particular catastrophe zone, which makes central authorities funding obtainable to the native authorities and victims.

All flights to and from Muan Worldwide Airport have been cancelled.

A nationwide seven-day interval of mourning has been declared, and New Yr’s Day celebrations within the nation are more likely to be cancelled or scaled down.

Plane maker Boeing has stated it’s in contact with Jeju Air and stands “able to help them”.

Jeju Air has apologised to households, with its chief government saying in a information convention that the airline had no historical past of accidents. It’s believed that Sunday’s crash has been the airline’s solely deadly accident because it was launched in 2005.

A hen strike is a collision between a airplane in flight and a hen. They’re quite common – within the UK, there have been greater than 1,400 hen strikes reported in 2022, solely about 100 of which affected the airplane, in accordance with knowledge from the Civil Aviation Authority.

The most effective recognized hen strike occurred in 2009, when an Airbus airplane made an emergency touchdown on New York’s Hudson River after colliding with a flock of geese. All 155 passengers and crew survived.

Professor Doug Drury, who teaches aviation at CQUniversity Australia, wrote in an article for The Dialog this summer time that Boeing planes – like Airbus and Embraer – had turbofan engines, which could possibly be severely broken in a hen strike.

He stated that pilots have been educated to be particularly vigilant throughout the early morning or at sundown, when birds have been most lively.

However some aviation consultants are sceptical about whether or not a hen strike may have precipitated the crash at Muan Airport.

“Usually they [bird strikes] do not trigger the lack of an airplane by themselves,” Mr Thomas informed Reuters.

Australian airline security knowledgeable Geoffrey Dell additionally informed the information company: “I’ve by no means seen a hen strike stop the touchdown gear from being prolonged.”