By Bart Meijer and Lisa Barrington
(Reuters) -Uncertainty surrounds the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil, aviation experts said on Sunday, questioning how much impact a potential bird strike cited by authorities could have had in bringing down the Jeju Air flight.
The apparent absence of landing gear, the timing of the twin-engine Boeing (NYSE:) 737-800’s belly landing at Muan International Airport and the reports of a possible bird strike all raised questions that could not yet be answered.
The single-aisle aircraft was seen in video broadcast on local media skidding down the runway with no landing gear deployed before hitting a wall in an explosion of flame and debris.
“At this point there are a lot more questions than we have answers. Why was the plane going so fast? Why were the flaps not open? Why was the landing gear not down?” said Gregory Alegi, an aviation expert and former teacher at Italy’s air force academy.
South Korean officials are investigating the crash of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, including the impact of a potential bird strike and the weather. 179 of 181 people on board died.
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.
A spokesperson for Jeju Air was not immediately available for comment. Jeju Air declined to comment on the cause during news conferences, saying an investigation is under way.
Christian Beckert, a flight safety expert and Lufthansa pilot, said the video footage suggested that aside from the reversers, most of the plane’s braking systems were not activated, creating a “big problem” and a fast landing.
Beckert said a bird strike was unlikely to have damaged the landing gear while it was still up, and that if it had happened when it was down, it would have been hard to raise again.
“It’s really, really very rare and very unusual not to lower the gear, because there are independent systems where we can lower the gear with an alternate system,” he said.
The probe should paint a clearer picture, he added.
Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation and involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was made.
Experts say air accidents are usually caused by a cocktail of factors and that it can take months to piece together the sequence of events.
The flight data recorder was found at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), about two and a half hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder at 2:24 p.m., South Korean officials said.
Australian aviation consultant Trevor Jensen said fire and emergency services would normally be ready for a belly landing, “so this appears to be unplanned”.
CHAIN OF EVENTS
In the space of a few minutes, the control tower issued a bird strike warning, pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land, officials said, although it was not clear whether the aircraft had hit any birds.
“A bird strike is not unusual, problems with an undercarriage are not unusual. Bird strikes happen far more often, but typically they don’t cause the loss of an airplane by themselves,” said Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas.
A bird strike could have impacted the CFM International engines if a flock had been sucked into them, but that would not have shut them down straightaway, giving the pilots some time to react, Australian airline safety expert Geoffrey Dell (NYSE:) said.
After the bird strike warning and the mayday declaration, the pilots attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said.
That change of plan raised more questions for investigators, said Marco Chan, a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Buckinghamshire New University and a former pilot.
“It was changed to the opposite direction fairly late as well, which added to the workload,” Chan said. “It’s a lot of guessing games at this stage.”
The captain of the Boeing 737-800 plane had worked at that rank since 2019 and logged 6,823 flight hours, the South Korean government said. The first officer had worked at that rank since 2023 and had logged approximately 1,650 flight hours.
The 737-800 is one of the world’s most flown airliners with a generally strong safety record. It was developed well before the MAX variant involved in a recent Boeing safety crisis.
Birds hitting the plane alone were unlikely to explain the scale of the disaster, said Italian aviation expert Alegi.
“Of course there might have been a bird strike,” he said. “But the consequences are much too big for that to be the direct cause of the accident.”
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