South Korea’s worst-ever plane crash highlights dangers of bird strikes

Taipei, Taiwan – The fatal clang of Jeju Air Flight 2216 successful South Korea has highlighted the risks vertebrate strikes airs to commercialized airliners.

Pilots told aerial postulation power that their craft collided with a flock of birds soon earlier declaring mayday and making an exigency landing astatine Muan International Airport, according to South Korea’s Transport Ministry.

Footage of the clang connected Sunday showed the twin-engine Boeing 787-800 making a belly-flop landing connected the runway without its landing cogwheel deployed.

The craft past skidded crossed the tarmac earlier hitting a factual partition and exploding into flames, sidesplitting 179 retired of 181 radical connected board.

Geoffrey Thomas, the Australia-based editor-in-chief of Airline Ratings, said that a vertebrate onslaught was apt lone a partial origin of the deadly crash.

Evidence points to the craft experiencing an electrical nonaccomplishment due to the fact that it stopped transmitting determination information – known arsenic “ADS-B data” – to aerial postulation power soon aft declaring mayday, Thomas said.

“It appears arsenic though these pilots were dealing with cascading failures, the nonstop quality of which we don’t know. What we bash cognize is the ADS-B information stopped, they didn’t deploy their flaps for landing, and they didn’t deploy the undercarriage,” Thomas told Al Jazeera.

“Now, wherefore those things happen, we don’t know, but it each happened aft aerial postulation power warned of a flock of birds,” Thomas added.

It volition apt beryllium months earlier investigators find the nonstop origin of the crash, which is the deadliest aerial catastrophe to ever instrumentality spot connected South Korean soil.

South Korean authorities are probing the clang alongside the United States National Transportation Safety Board successful accordance with planetary aviation regulations due to the fact that the Boeing craft progressive was made successful the US.

Bird strikes are a comparatively communal hazard for commercialized aviation but seldom effect successful superior accidents.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 19,400 wildlife strikes – including birds – astatine US airports successful 2023 alone. US airlines reported different 236 strikes crossed 55 countries successful the aforesaid year, according to FAA data.

In the immense bulk of cases, the astir superior result is insignificant harm to the aircraft, with specified incidents costing the manufacture immoderate $1.5bn a year, according to Thomas.

Thomas said vertebrate strikes person go much communal owed to the maturation of aerial travel, with much than 120,000 commercialized flights each time astir the world, and the improvement of quieter planes.

Most often, though, craft that onslaught birds are wholly unaffected, according to regulatory data.

Of astir 1,400 vertebrate strikes successful the UK successful 2022, less than 100 caused harm to the craft oregon interrupted the flight, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

While vertebrate strikes seldom origin problems, they person been implicated successful respective superior accidents implicit the years.

Investigators probing the 2019 clang of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 recovered that an entity – astir apt a vertebrate – activated a flawed formation power strategy that caused the chemoreceptor of the level to transportation downward.

In 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 famously landed successful New York’s Hudson River aft colliding with a flock of birds soon aft takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. The Airbus A320-214 was capable to marque an exigency h2o landing with nary deaths.

In 1995, 24 Canadian and American airmen died aft their craft crashed astatine an aerial unit basal successful Alaska pursuing a collision with geese.

People ticker the quality of the deadly clang of Jeju Air Flight 2216 connected December 29, 2024 [Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images]

Doug Drury, an aviation adept astatine Australia’s CQUniversity, said that a vertebrate onslaught unsocial should not have led to a fatal crash.

Pilots were warned by aerial postulation power that birds were successful the area, Drury said, portion a Boeing 737 level should beryllium capable to marque an exigency landing adjacent aft losing powerfulness successful an engine.

“There are much questions than answers, unfortunately,” Drury told Al Jazeera.

He questioned wherefore the pilots failed to dilatory the craft during landing, wherefore they reportedly landed successful the other absorption of the runway and wherefore they landed beyond the mean “landing zone” position.

“Pilots are trained to dilatory the craft down to conscionable supra the stall velocity to minimise crushed tally distance. Why wasn’t the runway foamed with flame-retardant material?” Drury said.

Muan International Airport should besides person had information precautions successful spot to scare flocks of birds, specified arsenic loudspeakers that mimic the sounds of shotguns, helium said, which are commonly utilized astatine airports astir the world.

South Korea Chosun Daily paper reported connected Monday that biology interaction assessments astatine the airdrome had recommended the deployment of dependable cannons, lasers and informing lights, but the rollout of specified measures had been delayed owed to runway hold work.

South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok, who assumed his duties conscionable 3 days agone aft the impeachments of the president and premier minister, connected Monday ordered an exigency information inspection of the country’s full hose industry.

“As soon arsenic the mishap betterment is conducted, the transport ministry is requested to behaviour an exigency information inspection of the full craft cognition strategy to forestall recurrence of craft accidents,” Choi said.