Posted on 12/31/2024 7:20:05 AM PST by Red Badger
An aviation expert said that a bird strike alone would not sufficiently explain why a South Korean airline jet skidded off a runway and crashed, killing nearly every passenger on board.
On Sunday, Jeju Air Flight 2216 was landing at Muan International Airport about 180 miles south of Seoul when the incident occurred, according to the Wall Street Journal. The crash killed 179 of the 181 passengers and crew members onboard.
WARNING: The following post contains video of the crash, which may be disturbing for some readers.
VIDEO AT LINK.................
“There are a million backups on this airplane. It’s extremely safe, and that’s what a lot of people are saying. They can’t understand why this airplane was landed on that runway at that speed with no flaps, with no gear. There might have been something else involved,” aviation consultant Mike Boyd told Fox News on Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
That’s my take on it, too. That scenario most closely matches the facts from three different video perspectives and explains the crew’s motivation to forego checklists in favor of a rapid approach.
They did a go-around, cleaned up, and promptly shut down the wrong engine. Now they only have #2, the damaged engine they intended to shut down, producing less power than normal. Since they probably used the fire handle (procedurally correct for severe damage, instead of the simple use of the fuel shutoff switch) a quick restart of #1 was out of the question.
After this the Captain turned back to the airport for the opposite-direction landing, turning to the right instead of toward the left for the longer radar pattern (270-degree right turn). They had the ability to lower the slats/flaps and the gear because of the redundant systems, but they were deficient on power and may have worried that they wouldn’t make the runway with more drag. So they delayed. Meanwhile, the pilot-not-flying (probably the f/o) was running the checklist — perhaps at this point in a near-panic trying to restart the #1 engine at the expense of configuring for landing with the slats/flaps and gear.
They never configured at all before the final approach. Possible task saturation, confusion, unfamiliarity with the checklists, or even panic could have been contributing factors. The Korean cockpit crew resource management culture, at least as evidenced from past KAL accidents (this low-cost Korean airline probably has lower standards) is notoriously awful; another possible contributing factor. Simply put, the copilots didn’t speak up and the Captains were known as tone-deaf tyrants.
The quick reaction checklists are not very simple with multiple malfunctions and alternate procedures to work through. With no slats or flaps their final approach speed was probably around 180-90 knots. That made it very difficult to land in the touchdown zone on the 9,200-foot runway. They floated far down the runway. Soon they were committed to landing, when the #2 engine was put in reverse (visible in the crash video - yes, the thrust reverser in the 737 can be deployed below 10 feet radar altitude with the gear up) and the engine pod(s) were scraping the concrete, not to mention they didn’t have enough power to scrape-and-go. They were doing about 158 knots off the departure end of the runway, a speed that isn’t survivable at hardly any airport anywhere, let alone one with an enormous concrete barrier mounted with an ILS antenna directly in their path.
There is a video of the high-speed clean approach to the flare that shows the airplane just above the runway with fumes visible from the #2 engine, but not #1 engine, suggesting #1 was shut down. This supports our theory.
There is another video of the aircraft in flight with a puff of smoke emerging from #2 engine, suggesting the moment of a bird strike, and damage to that engine that was probably their main concern just afterwards. Some have suggested this video may be a mirror of the actual event but sleuths have shown that the shadows for the time of day were only in position for an approach to the north with the puff of smoke coming from #2 engine.
There are many more questions than answers, but I think we both agree this is a supposition that closely matches what is known.
Since the NTSB is involved, we will know what happened soon, in the preliminary report. The DFDR and CVR will fill in most of the blanks.
The gear will NOT freefall by itself without the gear handle down,
You don’t know when the ILS is engaged, do you ? It could be
at anytime before or on final.
“The autopilot follows the ILS all the way to the ground a few hundred feet from the end of the runway.” I hope you meant a few hundred feet after the approach end of the runway, otherwise just more sophmoric understanding of CAT III
I never said that the landing gear would automatically freefall. And because it requires a positive human action, that is yet more evidence that the pilots didn’t do it. And the ILS can be engaged as far as 18 NM. That is well outside the LG and flaps would be deployed.
And of course I meant that the ILS guides the plane down past the end of the runway.
I am not a pilot but being a former radioman for commercial aircraft, I have spent many hors in the cockpit checking ot the many functions of the autopilot.
Some experts are more expert than others................
In my very humble opinion, as a former USAF aircraft mishap investigator, and having seen what damage to one hydraulic line can do to a jet...
I can see how a bird ingested into one engine could damage the hydraulic system, IF it was a big enough bird that sent bones, etc as shrapnel into enough lines inside the wing and engine pylon.
But, the whole thing is weird to me, because I couldn’t see on the video whether the mishap jet had flaps down during that crash. The thrust reverser on the right wing engine was not deployed, that is the cowl being ripped off by high-speed contact with the runway. Landing gear is not deployed, but it can be deployed via gravity.
All in all, a weird incident.
My guess is they lost airspeed and basically fell onto the runway when their intention was to go around, but the altitude was not there.............
Not a bad guess, to be fair. To my old eyes, that jet looked like it was coming in at a higher than necessary speed at that low of an altitude.
Had that wall not been there, all they would have lost is their jobs................
I tend to agree with you, they had a missed approach they , cleaned up the aircraft for a go around, flaps up, gear up, then a bird strike kills an engine. They didn’t start the APU immediately and probably shut down the wrong engine by mistake in the panic. Now without a running APU they do not have bleed air to restart the good engine they shutdown nor do they have hydraulics as the APU is the third independent source of hydraulic pressure. They should have dropped the RAT immediately if it didn’t auto deploy om system power loss. Shutting down the good engine also took their last 400hz generator offline at the worst possible time. They would have had battery powered back up instruments and the 737 has mechanical manual flight controls that take real muscle strength to pull those cables to the control surfaces without hydraulic pressure boosting. This would explain the lack of flaps but the gear has gravity drop down back ups. Without hydraulics the brakes would be next to useless so they might have thought belly land for drag since they wouldn’t have thrust reversal or brakes. The fact they touched down long,fast and hot means even with belly drag there was no hope of stopping that aircraft before an overrun. My bet is on pilot error , they shut down the wrong engine, didn’t start the APU or drop the RAT and came in dead stick hot and long in a panic we all see the results of that error.
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