BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’
AP, SEOUL
A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines.
All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames.
The plane was seen having engine trouble. Preliminary examinations also say that the pilots received a bird strike warning from the ground control center and issued a distress signal as well.
Rescue team members work at the site of a plane crash at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024.
Photo: AP
However, experts say the landing gear issue was likely the main cause of the crash.
The South Korean government has launched safety inspections on all the 101 Boeing 737-800s in the country.
The South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that authorities were looking at maintenance and operation records during five days of safety checks that are to run until tomorrow.
The ministry said that a delegation of eight US investigators — one from the US Federal Aviation Administration, three from the US National Transportation Safety Board and four from Boeing — made an on-site visit to the crash site on Tuesday.
The results of their examination were not immediately available.
Jeju Air president Kim E-bae on Tuesday told reporters that his company would add more maintenance workers and reduce flight operations by 10 to 15 percent until March as part of efforts to enhance the safety of aircraft operations.
John Hansman, an aviation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the crash was most likely the result of a problem with the plane’s hydraulic control systems.
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,” Hansman said.
The Boeing 737-800 — an earlier version of 737 than the MAX — is a widely used plane with a good safety record, said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who has studied aviation safety.
The failure of the plane’s system for broadcasting location, operating its landing gear and extending the wing flaps to slow down indicate a widespread problem that affected electrical and hydraulic systems, Meshkati said.
Investigators would learn what went wrong by analyzing information from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, he said.
“These are really the two pillars for accident analysis and accident reconstruction,” Meshkati said.
Like other aviation experts, Meshkati also questioned the location of a solid wall just a few hundred meters past the end of the runway, given that planes occasionally do overshoot runways.
“Having such a big concrete barrier over there was really very bad luck for this particular airplane,” he said.
South Korean officials have said they will look into whether the Muan airport’s localizer — a concrete fence housing a set of antennas designed to guide aircraft safely during landings — should have been made with lighter materials that would break more easily upon impact.
