Ill-fated plane got bird strike warning

A Jeju Air plane flying from Thailand to South Korea with 181 people on board crashed on landing Sunday, killing 179, with only two persons plucked alive from the wreckage.

The Boeing 737-800 belonging to low-cost carrier Jeju Air, flying from Bangkok to Muan, was warned of a bird strike by the control tower during its first attempt to land shortly after 9 a.m. Minutes later, the pilot issued a “mayday” and tried to land again. Video showed the plane, its landing gear still retracted, attempting a belly landing.

The video then showed the plane skidding on the runway with smoke trailing behind until it slammed into a wall and burst into flames.

All 175 passengers and four of the six crew members were killed.

The passengers, aged three to 78, were all Korean apart from two Thais, authorities said. Rescue workers plucked two survivors — flight attendants aged 25 and 33 — from the wreckage.

Investigations have been launched, with officials focusing on a possible bird strike and poor weather.

“It really has to be a series of catastrophic events that led to such a high loss of life,” aviation consultant Philip Butterworth-Hayes told AFP.

“Crash protection systems on board were extremely robust,” he said, describing the disaster as “the most serious incident I’ve seen” in recent years.

Asked if the runway may have been too short, one official said this was likely not a factor.

“The runway is 2,800 meters long,” or 9,200 feet, “and similar-size aircraft have been operating on it without issues,” the official added.

Both black boxes — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — have been recovered, Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan said.

What is a bird strike?

A bird strike — a collision between a bird and an aircraft in flight — can be hazardous to aircraft. Jets can lose power if birds are sucked into their air intakes, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency.

Bird strikes have caused a number of fatal accidents globally.

“We’re looking at substantial birds hitting an engine, but that is, as we know, very rare,” Butterworth-Hayes said.

He recalled the famous “Miracle on the Hudson” in 2009, where a US Airways Airbus A320 was forced to ditch in New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike damaged both of its engines. All aboard managed to escape unhurt.

Rescue operation

Hundreds of firefighters and other emergency responders, including the military, were deployed to the Muan airport, with South Korea’s acting president designating the site a special disaster zone. Family members, many crying in despair, waited on the airport’s first floor.

The accident occurred with South Korea in the throes of a political crisis that began when then-president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on 3 December. Days later he was impeached.

Acting President Choi Sang-mok, on his third day in office, convened an emergency meeting with Cabinet members Sunday and visited the crash scene.

Aviation safety record

South Korea’s aviation industry has a solid safety record and the crash was the first fatal accident for Jeju Air.

On 12 August 2007, strong winds caused a Jeju Air-operated Bombardier Q400 carrying 74 passengers to veer off the runway at another southern airport, Busan-Gimhae. A dozen people were injured.

Before Sunday, the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil took place on 15 April 2002, when an Air China Boeing 767 traveling from Beijing hit a hill near Busan-Gimhae, resulting in 129 deaths.

The most recent fatal crash of a South Korean airline happened in San Francisco, California on 6 July 2013. Asiana Airlines’ Boeing 777 aircraft missed its landing, leaving three dead and 182 hurt.

The deadliest disaster to hit a South Korean airline goes back to 1 September 1983, when a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Boeing 747, which Moscow claimed was mistaken for a spy plane.

All 246 passengers and 23 crew aboard the Korean Air plane — a New York-to-Seoul flight via Anchorage, Alaska — were killed.