On December 30, 2024, the wreckage of the Jeju Air plane that overran the runway and crashed was located at Muan Muan International Airport in South Korea.
Kim Hongzhi | Reuters
Aviation experts are questioning the role of the airport’s design, which places a pile of dirt and a concrete wall at the end of the runway.
airplane, one boeing company 737-800, belly landing on the runway after a night of flying, apparently with flaps and landing gear retracted. The jetliner burst into flames after hitting dirt and a wall that had locators installed to guide the plane onto the runway.
“It certainly makes it difficult to stop the plane safely,” said Todd Curtis, founder of Aviation Safety Media, which tracks aviation accidents and other incidents. Curtis worked as a safety engineer at Boeing Co. for nearly a decade.
It will take months or more for crash investigators to figure out the cause of the crash, South Korea’s worst ever and its worst in years. they will check everything From aircraft maintenance records to pilot dispatch to cockpit voice recorders.
On December 30, 2024, officials held a status briefing at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, and the families of the victims of the Jeju Air crash reacted.
Kim Soo Hyun | Reuters
Preliminary evidence suggests that bird strikes may have been a key cause of engine damage. Experts caution that the investigation is still in its early stages.
Some aviation experts said the death toll might have been minimized had the plane not collided with a concrete wall.
John Cox, an aviation safety consultant, said that in the video of the Jeju Air flight landing, “you can see the plane skidding, it’s slowing down, they’re slowing down, everything was going fine until they hit on the wall”. and a Boeing 737 pilot.
Cox said he suspected the cause of death for most of the passengers on board was “blunt force trauma caused by impact with the wall.”
Obstacles passing through airport runways are common and are recommended.
For example, at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and other airports, engineered material interception systems (EMAS) – crushable materials that slow aircraft down off runways and prevent them from rolling into more dangerous areas – are installed. In 2016, then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence’s plane overran the runway at LaGuardia Airport and was eventually intercepted by EMAS.
According to video footage and expert analysis, the barrier at the edge of the runway at South Korea’s Muan International Airport does not appear to be fragile or capable of breaking, which is a possible focus for investigators.
