The apparent impact with a bird and the failure of the landing gear seem key to understanding the accident suffered on Sunday by South Korean Jeju Air flight 7C2216, an accident still surrounded by unknowns that has left 179 dead and only two survivors, hitting with harshness to entire families.
Possible causes
Six minutes before landing, skidding off the runway and exploding when hitting a wall, flight 7C2216, a Boeing 737-800, received an avian risk alert from the control tower at Muan airport (290 kilometers southwest of Seoul). , which is emitted when a large flock of birds or large birds is detected around the plane’s path.
Two minutes later, the captain issued a “mayday” or distress alert before landing without deploying the landing gear or apparently other braking mechanisms, such as spoilers (the moving plates located on the top of the wings that increase drag). into air) or the reverse thrust of the engines (which diverts the direction of the exhaust and reduces acceleration).
Experts consider, however, that the failure in one engine (images captured before landing show flames in the right propeller, possibly due to the impact with a bird) should not have affected the other systems and that it will be necessary to clarify whether, in addition to the supposed crash, There could also be some defect in the aircraft or in its maintenance.
The investigation is expected to take at least six months and could last years, especially after it was learned that one of the two black boxes, the flight data recorder (FDR), was partially damaged and decoding it will take longer.
The plane, the pilots and the runway
The newspaper The New York Times, citing the consulting firm Cirium, detailed that the crashed Boeing 737-800 belonged to the Irish Ryanair, which had leased the aircraft to the South Korean low-cost company Jeju Air since 2017 and that the device has around 15 years old.
The captain of the flight, 45 years old, had accumulated 6,823 flight hours, while his co-pilot, 35, had 1,650.
Most of that experience also corresponded to the 737-800, since the pilot had 6,096 flight hours with the model and his second on board 1,339.
Some have suggested that 300 meters of Muan’s runway were under construction for a future expansion, leaving 2,500 meters for landing.
Read: 179 people die after plane crash in South Korea
Officials from the South Korean Ministry of Transportation cited by the Yonhap agency indicated in any case that the damaged model is capable of landing without problem on runways that are only 1,500 meters long.
The victims
The characteristics of the flight, mainly booked through travel agencies, have meant that entire families found themselves on board in a very popular season for traveling in South Korea, when the short holiday period at the end of the year and the intense winter cold coincide. and many opt to go to warm destinations in Southeast Asia.
Among the many families on the plane were, for example, nine people from four different generations of a single clan who traveled to Bangkok, where the flight departed, to celebrate the birthday of the oldest passenger on 7C2216, a man 78 years old.
Local media also talk about groups of retired colleagues flying on the Boeing, where most of the travelers were between 40 and 60 years old, although the victims included five children under 10 and another nine who did not reach the age of 10. 20.
The airport in Muan, capital of South Jeolla province, one of the most rural in the country, is used almost exclusively by the inhabitants of the region, where almost all of the passengers seemed to reside.
Relatives awaiting the arrival of their loved ones have explained to South Korean media that they received instant messages from their loved ones, some even jokingly, indicating that the crew had informed them of a problem on the plane due to a collision with a bird.
The survivors
Only two people survived the crash, both flight attendants who were traveling in the tail of the plane, which was apparently the part least affected by the landing, crash and explosion.
One of the survivors, a 33-year-old man named Lee, is admitted to the intensive care unit of a Seoul hospital with several fractures (one of them in the left shoulder) and a reserved prognosis, although he is conscious and apparently not suffers no memory loss.
The other is a 25-year-old woman named Koo and has also been transferred to a medical center in the South Korean capital.
The flight attendant has suffered head and ankle injuries and is believed to be stable and, according to the firefighters who rescued her, she told them that “smoke started coming out of one of the engines and then it exploded.”
With information from EFE
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