South Korea plane crash
 

Sunday, a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 had to make a runway belly landing, no gear down or flaps deployed, skidded and crashed into an embankment . Two survived out of the 181 on board. Early speculation involves issues from a bird strike to an engine on first attempted landing. There's incredible footage of the disaster as the plane skidded down the runway. Need expert opinions on cause from out PPOT aviation experts

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Ugg. Airplanes are the safest way to travel. I read that half a million people are airborne at any given moment. Until something like this happens. Awful.

the interviewee is correct. any make of plane would have suffered the same consequences, given that particular situation


was there a wall at the other end? if not, the choice of approaching from this direction was a deadly choice. the controller would dictate the landing direction, yes?

Horrible and unnecessary loss of life. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a Boeing problem. They’ve had more than enough trouble already.

The wind dictates the landing RWY in use. 5KTS and below is considered calm winds and either end could be used, depending on local rules for Noise Abatement ETC.

The nature of the emergency that led to the wheels up landing can impact the runway choice as well. For instance, no fuel, lack of flight control, onboard fire etc can dictate that the aircraft land on the rwy with the closest reachable threshold as well. RWY length also plays a factor, the longer the better and not all runways at all airports (parallels) or not, are the same length.

Cheers

I see the crash video and am thinking all those people are alive right to that point of explosive impact. Don't think I've ever seen that many souls lost that fast at once. Very eerie...

^^^ Yes, that's very chilling.

Supposedly:
Bird strike warning from ATC 3 minutes before landing.
Pilot issues mayday call 1 minute before.
No landing gear (which should have been down even before the above sequence of events?)
And no flaps? That plane didn't seem to shed much velocity as it skidded down the runway.
Not helped by the fact that there was a solid wall at the end of the runway, though I can see how the pilots at that point may not have had the opportunity to try a different (wall-less) approach.
A lot doesn't seem to make sense.

RIP & condolences to the families.

Juan has a pretty good analysis of the first data.

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This one is a real head scratcher, way more detail is needed. Even in the extremely rare event of a bird strike disabling both engines, the pilots would still have emergency backup power using the batteries, ram air turbine, or auxiliary power unit to provide power to the hydraulics and lower the gear and flaps. But if both engines were disabled just after takeoff, how was aircraft able to turn around and get back to the departure airport? 737s don’t glide worth a damn. If the aircraft was still flyable, and for some reason they lost the hydraulic system, why didn’t they divert to one of several other airports in S. Korea that have longer runways and not a freaking solid barrier at the end? Diverting would have also allowed them to dump fuel. Lots of questions…

Matt, this was at the end of a flight from south east Asia.
The video seems to show full control on approach. Can't imagine why gear and flaps were not deployed. Possibly poor cockpit resource management.
We'll see eventually.

Best
Les

I’ve been on a couple dozen flights the last few months. There’s been 3 flights (737’s) that had bad parts in the apu that required gate supplied air to start an engine (and subsequent delays). The pilot(s) said it was a common issue. 🤷*♂️

I saw a commentator who is very familiar with Korean airports. He said many of their airports double as military bases, which may explain why concrete was used to anchor the approach system.

Les, that’s not what I’ve read. The pilot declared an emergency within 5 minutes of takeoff and returned to the departure airport. They call it a teardrop when you immediately turn around and land on the same runway, opposite direction. It’s a very dangerous maneuver for an aircraft that has lost engine power, and it’s common for pilots to crash when attempting it.

That was not the departure airport. It was arriving from Bangkok, Thailand.

There was another plane that had gear issues recently. That got muddled in the BBC article.

Also made clear in the BBC article is the tower issued a bird strike warning which forced a delay in landing. That is not the same as a bird striking the plane. Might’ve happened but it seems the facts available now don’t include that.

Sooo many questions; why didn’t they manually put down the gear, why doesn’t the 737 have to have a ram air turbine, why wasn’t the runway foamed, and why the hell would they put the ILS in a concrete building at the end of the runway?

Just awful & probably the worst accident I've seen on video.

It was a miracle that somehow two people got out alive!

Juan's early analysis is excellent, thanks for sharing. I now wonder if the apparent damage to the right engine was significant enough to cut a major hydraulic line and cause both landing gear and flaps to malfunction. It was explained though there are three redundant systems for flight controls. Do these backup systems still work without hydraulic pressure? The flight crew really didn't have enough time to go over protocol for a safer landing. Did they even try to retract the LG? Looking at the schematic, the brakes also work on hydraulics. If a major line was cut, and no brakes the pilots probably thought that a skidding belly landing would stop the plane quicker than landing with gear down and no brakes or flaps. My early analysis is done, waiting for black box data next.

There was another report this same plane had to make an emergency landing for an unknown issue earlier in the week. These sure needs clarification.

From a more recent bbc report

One passenger on the flight messaged a relative, saying that a bird "was stuck in the wing" and that the plane could not land, local media reported.



Regarding gear issue confusion the article I read was clear it was a different plane that had to circle back after takeoff recently.

It’s sad. So many things went wrong.