The investigation into the South Korean plane crash raises more questions than answers about the cause

South Korean officials have gone He insisted on finding out what the cause was A Boeing 737-800 passenger plane operated by Jeju Air caught fire while trying to land over the weekend, all but two of the 181 on board died. A day after the tragedy, there were still more questions than answers about the worst aviation disaster in decades.

Authorities ordered an immediate inspection of all 737-800 planes operated by the country’s airlines – dozens of planes in total – following the crash, but there was still no clear indication that a system malfunction, human error, or a combination of factors caused the disaster.

Here is a look at what is known about the Jeju Air crash, and some important questions that have arisen in the wake of the tragedy.

What happened in the South Korean plane crash?

Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Bangkok, Thailand, and approached its destination on Sunday at Muan International Airport in southern South Korea.

After the first failed landing attempt, the Boeing 737-800 received a bird strike warning from the ground control center. It then went up again before attempting a second descent.

Two minutes later, the flight crew sent a distress message and tried to land on another runway. The plane touched down three minutes later without lowering its nose landing gear.

It skidded down the runway at high speed, went over the end of the runway and hit a concrete barrier, bursting into flames. The only survivors were two crew members who were rescued from the tail section.

Observers say that videos of the crash suggest that the plane had engine trouble, but a malfunctioning landing gear may have been the main cause of the crash.

South Korea’s Transport Ministry officials said the plane’s flight data and cockpit records – so-called “black boxes” – had been moved to a research center at Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport before being analysed. Earlier, the Ministry said it will take months to complete the investigation into the accident.

“I think the cockpit voice recorder, if we can read that, will be the key to unlocking this mystery,” Robert Sumwalt, former chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, told CBS News.

Jeju Air said the crash was not caused by “any maintenance issues,” according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, and aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told BBC News that South Korean airlines are widely regarded as following “industry best practice” and that both aircraft. and Jeju Air had an “excellent safety record.”

The South Korean plane skidded into the anti-aircraft defense

Department of Transportation officials said Monday they will examine whether the crash barrier — a concrete structure with booms designed to guide the plane safely on landing — should have been made of lighter materials that would break easily in an impact. They said they are also trying to check if there are any communication problems between the flight attendants and the pilot.

The location of the localizer antennas near the end of the runway behind the unforgiving towers will likely be the focus of the investigators..

“Normally, at an airport with a runway at the end, you don’t have a wall,” Christian Beckert, an aviation security expert and pilot for German airline Lufthansa told Reuters news agency. “You more [often] maybe have an engineering harness system, which lets the plane sink a little” to slow it down.

Did a bird strike cause the Jeju Air disaster?

Lee Jeong-hyun, head of the Muan local authority, said on Sunday that bird strikes and bad weather could have contributed to the accident, but stressed that the cause was still under investigation.

According to CBS News of the BBC News network, one passenger on the plane texted a relative before the disaster that the bird was “stuck on the wing” and could not land, but officials have not confirmed whether it is there. the sound of birds.

Geoffrey Thomas, an expert quoted by the BBC and editor of Airline News, told Reuters separately that he doubted a bird strike alone would cause a fatal accident.

“Bird strikes are not uncommon. Undercarriage problems are rare. Bird strikes happen frequently, but they usually do not cause the loss of the aircraft themselves,” he said.

Why no landing gear?

It remains unclear what, if any, engine or systems failure the flight crew may have been experiencing in the last few minutes of the errant flight. Experts said that the video of the crash shows that there is no visible movement of the plane’s wings during descent, which could help slow the plane down, indicating that there may be a drop in hydraulic pressure that controls the machines.

Water control systems work independently, and experts say that engine problems will not affect their operation.

The aircraft also has a manual release for pilots to lower the landing gear in the event of an electronic or mechanical failure. It was unclear whether the Jeju Air team simply did not have time to lower the nose wheels manually, or if something else would have prevented them from doing so.

Sumwalt, the former chairman of the NTSB, told CBS News, “I flew 737s for 10 years as a captain, and I can say that the landing gear can be operated manually, so the real question is going to be, what caused the sequence of events here? Did the bird strike and go to plan?” the sequence of events where the crew rushed and didn’t put on the landing gear I doubt there was a malfunction of the gear, given that it can be used manually and in normal ways.”

It’s been a long, hard year for US aerospace giant Boeing

The accident closed a difficult 2024 for the American aviation giant Boeing, which has already faced. security issuesa the marchers went on strike again stock prices plummeted.

Experts say the 737-800 is a more proven model than the company’s much-vaunted 737 Max. related to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

“I think it’s very important to separate this accident … from the problems that Boeing has had in the past,” Smwalt said. “This airplane is 15 years old, so it probably wasn’t a manufacturing issue if the airplane is old and has flown thousands of hours. It’s not a design issue. So I don’t think Boeing is going to take direct control because of this.”

Still, South Korean authorities said they would conduct safety checks on all 737-800s operated by domestic airlines, including 39 of Jeju Air.

contributed to this report.