South Korea Plane Crash: Why Was There A Wall? Questions Raised Over Runway Design, Efforts On To Identify Victims

(MENAFN- Live Mint) South Korea's policy agency said on Tuesday it was making efforts to expedite the process of identifying bodies from the Jeju Air plane crash that killed 179 people on Sunday. The crash is said to be the country's worst-ever Aviation disaster in history.

A Boeing 737-800 plane operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway at Muan International Airport. It struck a concrete fence at the Airport in southern South Korea on Sunday.

There were 181 passengers, including crew, aboard when the crash happened. All but two people were killed. Two survivors – crew members – were pulled from the wreckage.

"The top priority for now is identifying the victims, supporting their families and treating the two survivors," South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-m ok told a disaster management meeting in Seoul.

Fire and transportation officials have said investigators are examining bird strikes, whether any of the aircraft's control systems were disabled, and the apparent rush by the pilots to attempt a landing soon after declaring an emergency as possible factors in the crash.

Experts say many questions remain, including why the plane, powered by two CFM 56-7B26 engines, appeared to be travelling so fast and why its landing gear did not appear to be down when it skidded down the runway and into a concrete embankment.

"I can't think of any reason for being forced to make a landing like this," said aviation safety expert John Nance, a former military and commercial pilot who flew 737s for Alaska Airlines.

Transport ministry officials informed that as the pilots made a scheduled approach, they told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike, shortly after the control tower gave them a warning birds were spotted in the vicinity.

The pilots then issued a Mayday warning and signalled their intention to abandon the landing and to go around and try again. Shortly afterwards, the aircraft came down on the runway in a belly landing, touching down about 1,200 metres (1,310 yards) along the 2,800 metre (3,062 yard) runway and sliding into the concrete structur at the end of the landing strip.

Aviation safety analysts said they expect officials investigating the crash to look into the location and composition of a concrete structure near the runway that the airliner slammed into.

Experts told New York Times that most airports don't have similar structures in such proximity to runways. When they do, they are typically made of softer materials designed to break apart or absorb impact with minimal damage to a plane that overruns a runway.

"Normally, on an airport with a runway at the end, you don't have a wall," said Christian Beckert, a flight safety expert and Lufthansa pilot based in Munich. "You more have maybe an engineered material arresting system, which lets the airplane sink into the ground a little bit and brakes (it)," he told Reuters.

But "what we saw here was a head-on collision with a concrete wall that appears very thick,” Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, told New York Times.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration says that standard runway safety areas extend 1,000 feet beyond the runway's end and 500 feet on the sides. Any structures within these zones should be“frangible,” FAA rules say, able to break or give way to prevent catastrophic damage.

Meanwhile, the concrete structure that Jeju Air flight smashed into housed a device called a localizer, an antenna array that is used to guide aircraft during their approach and landing, local officials said. These antennas are normally located beyond the departure end of the runway, and they must be placed according to specific guidelines to function correctly.

Attention was also drawn to the length of the runway at Muan airport. Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan said the runway's 2,800-metre length was not a contributing factor, and that walls at the ends were built to industry standards.

South Korea's acting President Choi ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operation. "As soon as the accident recovery is conducted, the transport ministry is requested to conduct an emergency safety inspection of the entire aircraft operation system to prevent recurrence of aircraft accidents," he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

MENAFN30122024007365015876ID1109043367