Bird strikes brought down flight 2216?
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Ghastly task South Korean soldiers search for missing passengers near the wreckage of the Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 plane that was consumed by fire upon landing at the Muan International Airport in South Jeolla Province, some 288 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
JUNG YEON-JE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Yonhap said on Sunday that witnesses to a fatal plane crash in the southern county of Muan on Sunday described seeing flames in the jet’s engine and hearing explosions.
This developed as the news agency reported authorities are investigating the possibility of a bird strike causing landing gear failure.
At approximately 9:07 a.m., a Jeju Air flight 2216 carrying 181 people strayed off the runway during landing and collided with a fence wall at Muan International Airport in Muan county, South Jeolla Province, roughly 288 kilometres south-west of Seoul.
Local television stations aired videos of the plane attempting to land without landing gear deployed. Officials suspected the tragedy was caused by landing gear failure, possibly as a result of a bird strike.
Yoo Jae-yong, 41, who was living at a rental property near the airport, reported seeing a spark on the plane’s right wing before it crashed.
“I was telling my family there was a problem with the plane when I heard a loud explosion,” Yoo remembered.
Another witness, named only by his surname Cho, said he was on a walk 4.5 kilometers from the airport when the accident occurred.
“I saw the plane descending and thought it was about to land when I noticed a flash of light,” Cho said. “Then there was a loud bang followed by smoke in the air, and then I heard a series of explosions.”
Kim Yong-cheol, 70, stated that the jet failed to land on the first try and circled around for another before crashing.
Kim said he heard the sound of “metallic scraping” twice around five minutes before the incident.
Kim claimed he glanced up at the sky and observed the jet ascending after failing to land, before hearing a “loud explosion” and seeing “black smoke billowing into the sky.”
A 50-year-old witness fishing nearby, identified by the surname Jung, described seeing a flock of birds collide with the jet, causing fire in the right engine.
“As the plane was landing on the runway, it hit a flock of birds approaching from the opposite direction,” he told me. “I heard two or three bangs as if the birds had been sucked into the engine before I saw flames coming from the right engine.”
Police and firefighters are doing an on-site investigation to ascertain the exact reason. WITH YONHAP
