Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links below. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 crashed upon landing at Muan International Airport (MWN) after flying from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK). The Boeing 737-800 had 181 passengers and crew on board with 28 fatalities confirmed so far.
BREAKING: Video shows crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 in South Korea. 181 people on board pic.twitter.com/9rQUC0Yxt8
— BNO News (@BNONews) December 29, 2024
The terrifying video shows the Boeing 737-800 land on runway 01 without landing gear. It does not slow down, goes off of the runway, and crashes into a wall. A fiery blaze erupts. No details have been released as to why the landing gear was not deployed.
One of the first photos from the crash site of Jeju Air Flight 2216 in South Korea. At least 175 people were on board – Yonhap pic.twitter.com/oLZGit0P9A
— BNO News (@BNONews) December 29, 2024
There are currently 28 fatalities, but the number dead will likely increase based on the severity of the crash. Jeju Air is a South Korean low-cost carrier. It has not had a fatal accident in its history until today.
Extremely likely that Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243 from Baku to Grozny has been shut down by Russian air defense. Shrapnel impact clearly visible on the Embraer ERJ190 fuselage. pic.twitter.com/9CJoKfKDhY
— Christopher Potter (@chris_p_potter) December 25, 2024
This is the second crash that we have seen this week. Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2 8243 was flying from Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD) to Grozny Airport (GRZ) in Russia’s Chechnya on Christmas Day. The 301-mile flight was forced to divert to Aqtau International Airport (SCO) and crashed near the airport. Initial reports blamed a bird strike, but it now appears that the crash was caused by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
Anthony’s Take: An investigation will be ongoing in South Korea. My condolences to the families and friends who lost loved ones and I hope that there are not too many more deaths as a result of this accident.
(Featured Image Credit: Yonhap News.)
User Generated Content Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
2 comments
Birds struck the plane mid-flight may have caused the malfunction with the landing gear.
The aircraft involved was manufactured in 2009 and powered by two CFM56 turbofan engines. It made its maiden flight on August 19, 2009 and was delivered new to Ryanair. Since 2017, the aircraft has been operated by Jeju Air.
On December 27, 2024, two days before the accident, the aircraft diverted to Incheon International Airport while operating Jeju Air flight 8135 to Beijing Daxing International Airport originating from Jeju International Airport. The aircraft was in cruising flight transiting the Yellow Sea at FL320 when flight crew declared an emergency. A descent and diversion to Searle Incheon International Airport (ICN) was then carried out. Flight crew squawked emergency transponder code 7700, declaring an emergency when established on the descent on track to the diversion airport.
Jeju Air is the largest low-cost carrier in South Korea.
Muan’s runway is just over 9,000 feet long, so it’s not short. Details about why the jet landed without gear, and why it was still at such a high speed at the end of the runway, remain to be seen.
At 8:54 am the Boeing 737-800NG operating the Jeju Air Flight 2216 was authorized to land at Muan International Airport in South Korea. As the plane was preparing to land, it was warned at 8:57 am about the potential for a bird strike. A minute later, it issued a mayday alert.At 9:00 a.m, the plane attempted an emergency landing, being forced to go around again after the landing gear was not deployed. A minute later, it received authorization to attempt a landing from the opposite direction. Most pilots are trained for situations like this.
The crash occurred as the aircraft attempted to perform a belly landing,touching down 1,200m along the runway, sliding down the runway on the engine nacelles with a sustained nose-high attitude. It continued 250m past the runway threshold before colliding with an embankment holding the ILS array and exploding.
If they were in a stabilised approach the landing gear would be down WAY before the bird strike zone. The Boeing 737-800NG did a go-around with no problems.
Then nothing like this has ever happened, a plane comes in without landing gear, speed close to take off and on at least at 50% power until it contacted an object on the ground – Pilots missed alternate landing gear extension, alternate flap extension, approach and landing speed judgement, diversion, not correctly configure the aircraft for landing, way too fast, way too far down the runway before touchdown, 15-degree nose-up. Either a complete loss of throttle control or the pilots tried to climb out and it was too late.
We have seen pilots ignore repeated alarms in the cockpit, warnings from the GPWS many times including PIA8303 and Air France 447. This is more than likely another example of a crew doing everything other than what they should have been doing.
There are 3 hydraulic systems aboard the 737 – system A, B and Stand by. The A system powers the landing gear for retraction, extension, and nose wheel steering. The B system powers the flaps and leading edge devices, with an electric backup that can extend and retract the flaps. All have redundancy but a complete failure of all 3 hydraulic systems and the backup electrical system to operate the flaps is damn near impossible.
APU can provide electrical power to the electric motor driven pumps (EMDP’s) and thus supply hydraulic pressure. One of the amazing things that Captain Sullenberger did, when they first hit the birds on takeoff was immediately start the APU, before he did anything else, as I guess he knew he might lose both engine power from the birds.
Hydraulics not required for emergency use of flaps and landing gear on 737. Pilots should be able to manually drop the landing gear no matter what. Landing gear can be manually extended with the 3 red handles-Right Main, Nose and Left Main-behind crew seats on the floor, physically connected to each strut that when pulled releases the gear which falls and locks into place by their own weight and wind drag. On Boeing 737-800 NG, the manual extension handles will function with the landing gear lever in any position.
However it does take time. Crew only gave themselves 7 minutes to execute check lists and final between loss of signal on initial approach and attempted go around.
There’s really no explanation for the gear being retracted other than the pilot forgot. The Control Tower should have informed them that their landing gear was not down though. The aircraft won’t even allow use of thrust reversers unless you have main gear strut compression, in this case with the gear still retracted there may not be any thrust reversers nor spoilers available.
The lack of ADS-B during the final landing implies a complete loss of power.
The aviation industry is built on redundancy and there are very few single-point failures in airplane design or airplane operations A combination of unlucky factors including ongoing mechanical issues, a bird strike, and poor crew resource management caused this crash. Also it appears the airport was expecting an emergency landing.
MWX runway 19 has a Landing Distance 2800m. The end of Runway 19 is about 6 m below its threshold. The embankment is to raise the localizer array, to compensate for the runway slope. However, within the United States and Canada these would be required to be mounted on frangible support structures. You want the support structure to break-away and cause as minimal damage as possible in a scenario like this. You would not be allowed to construct an earth mound like this within the runway overruns. This localizer is about 150m off the overrun, which would violate North American Airfield criteria, but it’s a Korean Airport so regulations are different.
My guessing
Birdstrike with severe damage on the right engine and crew incorrectly shuts down the left engine, losing both engines.
Immediate turn back to land tailwind opposite direction.
Split decisions, forgot the landing gear.
The plane wasn’t ready for that belly landing at all.