Experts question bird strike as cause of deadly South Korean plane crash

Uncertainties surround the deadliest crash on South Korean soil, experts said on Sunday, questioning initial suggestions that a bird strike might have brought down the Jeju Air flight.

The apparent absence of landing gear, the timing of the twin-engine Boeing 737-800's belly-landing at Muan International Airport and the reports of a possible bird strike all raised questions that could not yet be answered.

Catch latest news on South Korean plane crash here.

The single-aisle aircraft was seen in video broadcast on local media skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flame and debris.

"Why didn't fire tenders lay foam on the runway? Why weren't they in attendance when the plane touched down? And why did the aircraft touch down so far down the runway? And why was there a brick wall at the end of the runway?" said Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas.

South Korean officials said they were investigating the cause of the crash of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, including a possible bird strike. The crash killed 179 of the 181 people on board.

A spokesperson for Jeju Air was not immediately available for comments. Jeju Air declined to comment on the cause of the accident during news conferences, saying an investigation is under way.

Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was designed and built.

The flight data recorder was found at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), about two and a half hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder was found at 2:24 p.m., according to South Korea's transport ministry.

"That gives you all the parameters of all the systems of the plane. The heartbeat of the airplane is on the flight data recorder," Thomas said. "The voice recorder will probably provide the most interesting analysis of what went on on this tragic crash."

Experts caution that air accidents are usually caused by a cocktail of factors and it can take months to piece together the sequence of events in and outside the plane.

Chain of events

In the space of a few minutes, the control tower issued a bird strike warning, pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land, officials said, although it was not clear whether the aircraft had hit any birds.

Experts said it seemed unlikely a bird strike would have caused the landing gear to malfunction.

"A bird strike is not unusual, problems with an undercarriage are not unusual. Bird strikes happen far more often, but typically they don't cause the loss of an airplane by themselves," Thomas said.

Australian airline safety expert Geoffrey Dell said, "I've never seen a bird strike prevent the landing gear from being extended."

Australian aviation consultant Trevor Jensen said fire and emergency services would normally be ready for a belly-landing, "so this appears to be unplanned".

A bird strike could have impacted the CFM International engines if a flock had been sucked into them, but that would not have shut them down straightaway, giving the pilots some time to deal with the situation, Dell said.

It was unclear why the plane did not decelerate after it hit the runway, Dell and Jensen said.

Typically in a belly-landing, "You are going to land on your engines and you're going to have a bumpy ride," Thomas said.

"You come in with minimum fuel, you have fire tenders in attendance, covering the runway with foam and you land at the furthest end of the runway and usually it ends up being an OK situation."

After the control tower issued the bird strike warning and the pilots declared mayday, the pilots attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said.

"In the process of landing it hit a navigation safety facility called a localizer and collided with the wall," the official said.

Joo Jong-wan, deputy transport minister, said the runway's 2,800-metre length was not a contributing factor, and that the walls at the ends had been built according to standards.

“Both ends of the runway have safety zones with green buffer areas before reaching the outer wall," he told a separate briefing. "The airport is designed according to standard aviation safety guidelines, even if the wall may appear closer than it actually is.”

The captain had worked at that rank since 2019 and had logged 6,823 flight hours, the ministry said. The first officer had worked at that rank since 2023 and had logged approximately 1,650 flight hours.

The Boeing model involved in the crash, a 737-800, is one of the world’s most flown airliners with a generally strong safety record and was developed well before the MAX variant involved in a recent Boeing safety crisis.