South Korea’s Jeju Air crash: experts question why wall was at end of runway
Videos of the crash show the plane managing to belly-land intact, before skidding at high speed into wall and exploding in a fireball
As South Korea mourns the 179 victims of its worst-ever air disaster, aviation experts have raised questions over a wall or “dune” that Jeju Air flight 7C2216 had slammed into after landing without wheels and skidding beyond the runway.
Experts argue that a solid structure near the end of the runway to contain an aircraft guidance system contributed to the tragedy. Others suggested the pilots had little time to perform standard emergency landing procedures due to a sudden loss of power in both engines from a bird strike.
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Aviation expert David Learmont told Sky News TV that the failure to properly deploy landing gear was actually not what had killed the passengers.
“The passengers were killed by hitting a solid structure just over the end of the runway where a solid structure should not be,” he argued.
The earth and concrete mount, set up 251 metres off the runway’s end, contains antennae for the Instrument Landing System, which guides aircraft in bad weather.
Learmont said such equipment was normally secured to the ground and collapsible in case of any aircraft overshooting the runway and going over them. “But we can see the aircraft running into this structure and just crumpling and exploding.”
