Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 landed at Muan airport with no undercarriage and slid into an earth bank and concrete structure supporting the ILS aerials for the opposite runway. Video of the aircraft sliding a high speed along the paved surface of the runway shows the aircraft intact but travelling at between 150 and 200 mph, using very rough calculations. The plane then arrived at the obstruction, broke up and bursts into flames; only a small part of the rear fuselage and tail remains identifiable.
Two cabin attendants seated at the rear of the aircraft were the only survivors. The even followed reports of a bird strike and video from a mobile phone whilst the aircraft was overhead, shows the right hand (number 2) engine emitting a puff of smoke, which is consistent with the engine ingesting an object such as a bird or birds.
It appears that the aircraft made an approach to runway 01 and the crew then executed a missed approach before turning back to land on runway 19, the reciprocal direction. This is the landing that resulted in the crash. It is reported that the air traffic controllers issued a bird hazard warning prior to the pilots then declaring a MAYDAY (Emergency) which preceded the final approach to land.
This is a very unusual event as aircraft are designed to withstand bird strikes and it would be an extreme event, such as the one in New York in 2009, when a US Airways Airbus A320 suddenly encountered a flock of geese, which were numerous enough to stop both engines. Captain Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles pulled off a spectacular landing on the Hudson river; all on board were safely picked up, albeit some with injuries.
The initial information on the Korean crash appeared to show a problem with just the number 2 engine, in which case the sequence of events that followed is hard to explain, as all transport aircraft are able to lose power from one engine and continue to fly safely. Pilots practice many emergency situations in a simulator and engine failure is a very common one; often during take-off, which is a critical time and regulations required aircraft to be able to continue the take-off safely even with a failure at a critical point. As a result this Boeing would fly well on one remaining engine, if this were a single loss of thrust event.
That the crew did not spend time – holding overhead if necessary – resolving any problems, running through checklists and planning the next action, suggest that either it was not in their company Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) or that they did not have the ability to take their time to deal with the problems. If the number 1 engine was also affected, it is possible that they had insufficient thrust to hang around and deal with any failures in a more relaxed manner. At this point we have little information regarding the state of the two engines.
Why no undercarriage? This is a another puzzle, as all commercial aircraft have alternative/emergency systems for lowering the wheels in the event of the normal systems failing. The undercarriage on a B737 will fall by gravity, once the alternate system activates the locks that holds the wheels in the up position. It is possible to imagine several reasons why they landed wheels up but we do not have enough information to judge just yet. Where they so overloaded with problems, such as smoke on the flight deck or other failures, that they simply failed to lower the gear? This has happened in the past, although the aircraft with shout at you if you forget, or was it something else?
If they did lose thrust on the second engine after the go around off the first approach, then they may have felt that the drag from lowering the undercarriage was a bigger risk, by preventing them reaching the runway at all and so took a decision to land wheels up. Another question left unanswered at this stage is engine thrust during the landing skid. The aircraft was going very fast and there are some indications that some thrust was still being delivered. Were that the case then it will prevent the aircraft from slowing down, which would be the most urgent need at that point.
Although I wrote a chapter of my book on the poor safety culture in another Korean airline – Korean Air – there were moves made by the Korean authorities following that crash, to address the cultural factors that existed in Korean Air at that time. I know not what the safety culture is like in Jeju Air and it is hoped that we will not find similar flaws in the company’s procedures that existed in the other airline.
In all airlines, pilots are constantly trained, monitored and tested to ensure that they are both well practiced in dealing with emergencies and up to date with the latest practices and current technical information; it is an ongoing process that never stops. Some airlines are willing to spend more time and money on this process than others and it is for this reason that I wrote my book, so that those who wish to understand, can see how to choose who they fly with.
So far as this tragedy is concerned, both the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) have been swiftly recovered, along with the bodies of the victims and so the authorities have reacted with some speed thus far. The data will hopefully be downloaded and analysed successfully, either in Korea or another cooperating authority and we may get a preliminary report soon, giving us some basic facts at least. The full report will take a long time. The aviation industry will be eager to understand how the series of issues combined to end in this gruesome fashion.
My understanding is that the location of a solid obstacle so close to the end of the runway, will also form part of the examination into the outcome, as the aircraft was intact until it met the earth bank.