South Korea faces a shock that occurred on its territory, in which 179 of the 181 people who were on board a flight have died. On Sunday, a Jeju Air airline passenger plane from Bangkok, Thailand, burst into flames at Muan International Airport, in the South Korean province of South Jeolla (southwest). It is believed that, during an emergency landing, all three landing gears failed, causing the aircraft to skid off the runway and collide with a dirt embankment and the concrete structures that delimit the perimeter of the airport. It has been the deadliest air accident of 2024 worldwide. This Monday, another flight from the same low-cost company had to return to the airport from which it had taken off, Gimpo (west), after detecting a problem with the landing gear which, despite this, worked correctly when the plane took land.
The exact cause of the accident remains uncertain and the investigation is ongoing. The Government announced this Monday that it will carry out a comprehensive safety inspection of all Boeing 737-800 models operated by local airlines. It is the type of the crashed plane, and very popular among national economic companies. Jeju Air operates the most of them, with 39 in its fleet. The authorities plan to check whether the companies correctly comply with the various regulations of the Boeing model, for which they will review the utilization rates of their planes, flight inspections and maintenance records.
Determining the reason for an accident of the magnitude of yesterday usually takes months, officials from the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation have emphasized. The first investigations point to a malfunction of the landing gear, as reported by that ministerial portfolio on Sunday. This failure could have caused an emergency descent, after which the plane hit the asphalt, without being able to remove the landing gear.
The Ministry of Transportation has reported that one of the two black boxes recovered from the plane has suffered partial damage, which will probably further delay the analysis. According to an official from the aviation and railway accident investigation board, cited by the Yonhap agency, the flight data recorder (FDR) of the Boeing 737-800 plane was damaged when it was found, while the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was intact. If both devices had been recovered without damage, the encryption process could have been relatively quick. However, authorities have warned that, given its condition, “just deciphering the FDR could take about a month.”
But the process could take even longer, since, according to the official, if they encounter difficulties in deciphering it, it would have to be sent to the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In that case, it could take at least six months. “They have cases from all over the world to analyze, so it could take a long time,” reports the South Korean news agency. The US Federal Aviation Administration has told Yonhap that it has formed a team with the NTSB to assist South Korean authorities in the investigation.
The FDR monitors the aircraft’s altitude, speed and direction, while the CVR records radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, such as pilots’ voices and engine noises. Both devices are designed to withstand an impact 3,400 times greater than the force of Earth’s gravity and temperatures exceeding one thousand degrees Celsius. They are installed at the rear of the aircraft to minimize damage in the event of an accident.
Some aviation experts are questioning whether a bird strike is the only or even the main cause of such a major accident and are suggesting alternative reasons, such as technical failures, arguing that both the engines and the ailerons installed on both wings of the apparatus—the so-called flaps y slapswhich deploy and modify the shape of the wings to reduce speed—had to stop working, since a bird strike alone cannot have caused simultaneous failure of all critical components. It is also unclear why the plane failed to stop after touching down.
They are asking authorities for a thorough investigation to determine whether it was due to a bird strike, a defect in the fuselage or poor maintenance of the plane. “It is difficult to conclude that the cause was solely a bird strike. We also have to determine if the aircraft had any pre-existing defects,” said Kim In-gyu, director of the Flight Education Center at Korea Aerospace University.
Frustration and anger
The families of the victims have expressed their frustration and anger at the slowness of the authorities in identifying the bodies. By midday on Monday, the identity of 141 had been confirmed. The plane was completely destroyed after colliding with the perimeter wall and bursting into flames, making the operation difficult. Of the 181 people on board, 93 were women and 82 men, ranging in age from three to 78 years old. Most were in their 40s, 50s and 60s. The country’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, who had barely been in office for 48 hours when the accident occurred, has declared seven days of national mourning.
The only two survivors were crew members, who were in the rear of the aircraft when the crash occurred: a 33-year-old man, surnamed Lee, and a 25-year-old woman, surnamed Koo. Both are receiving medical treatment in hospitals in Seoul, to which they were transferred after being treated in centers closer to Muan airport.
“When I woke up, they had already rescued me,” said Lee, according to the director of Ewha Women’s University Hospital in the capital, Ju Woong. “He has total ability to communicate. There are no signs of memory loss or similar,” Ju said, adding that he has not asked him about the details of what happened since he believes that it would not contribute to his recovery. Lee is in the intensive care unit after being diagnosed with multiple fractures, and is under special care due to the possibility of serious consequences, including complete paralysis. For his part, Koo is stable at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, although with injuries to his ankle and head. Medical personnel have not provided further details about his condition.
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae has extended his condolences and assured that he will “take full responsibility, regardless of the causes.” The manager arrived at the Muan airport eleven hours after the accident to apologize in person to the victims’ families; was received with indignation and anger. The company has pledged to do everything possible to assist families, both financially and otherwise, citing its insurance plan valued at almost €1 billion.
but not the most lethal in which an airline in the country is involved. That was in 1997, when a Korean Air plane crashed in Guam – in the Mariana Islands archipelago, an unincorporated territory of the United States. It claimed 200 lives.
