Taipei, Taiwan – The fatal crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 in South Korea has highlighted the dangers chook strikes pose to business airliners.
Pilots advised air site visitors management that their plane collided with a flock of birds shortly earlier than declaring mayday and making an emergency touchdown at Muan Worldwide Airport, in line with South Korea’s Transport Ministry.
Footage of the crash on Sunday confirmed the twin-engine Boeing 787-800 making a belly-flop touchdown on the runway with out its touchdown gear deployed.
The plane then skidded throughout the tarmac earlier than hitting a concrete wall and exploding into flames, killing 179 out of 181 folks on board.
Geoffrey Thomas, the Australia-based editor-in-chief of Airline Rankings, stated {that a} chook strike was probably solely a partial explanation for the lethal crash.
Proof factors to the plane experiencing {an electrical} failure as a result of it stopped transmitting location knowledge – often called “ADS-B knowledge” – to air site visitors management shortly after declaring mayday, Thomas stated.
“It seems as if these pilots have been coping with cascading failures, the precise nature of which we don’t know. What we do know is the ADS-B knowledge stopped, they didn’t deploy their flaps for touchdown, they usually didn’t deploy the undercarriage,” Thomas advised Al Jazeera.
“Now, why these issues occur, we don’t know, nevertheless it all occurred after air site visitors management warned of a flock of birds,” Thomas added.
It would probably be months earlier than investigators decide the precise explanation for the crash, which is the deadliest air catastrophe to ever happen on South Korean soil.
South Korean authorities are probing the crash alongside america Nationwide Transportation Security Board in accordance with world aviation rules as a result of the Boeing plane concerned was made within the US.
Bird strikes are a relatively common hazard for commercial aviation however not often end in severe accidents.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 19,400 wildlife strikes – together with birds – at US airports in 2023 alone. US airways reported one other 236 strikes throughout 55 nations in the identical yr, in line with FAA knowledge.
Within the overwhelming majority of instances, essentially the most severe end result is minor harm to the plane, with such incidents costing the business some $1.5bn a yr, in line with Thomas.
Thomas stated chook strikes have turn out to be extra widespread as a result of progress of air journey, with greater than 120,000 business flights every day all over the world, and the event of quieter planes.
Most frequently, although, plane that strike birds are fully unaffected, in line with regulatory knowledge.
Of practically 1,400 chook strikes within the UK in 2022, fewer than 100 precipitated harm to the plane or interrupted the flight, in line with the Civil Aviation Authority.
Whereas chook strikes not often trigger issues, they’ve been implicated in a number of severe accidents over time.
Investigators probing the 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airways Flight 302 discovered that an object – probably a chook – activated a flawed flight management system that precipitated the nostril of the aircraft to pitch downward.
In 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 famously landed in New York’s Hudson River after colliding with a flock of birds shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. The Airbus A320-214 was capable of make an emergency water touchdown with no deaths.
In 1995, 24 Canadian and American airmen died after their plane crashed at an air pressure base in Alaska following a collision with geese.
Doug Drury, an aviation skilled at Australia’s CQUniversity, stated {that a} chook strike alone shouldn’t have led to a deadly crash.
Pilots have been warned by air site visitors management that birds have been within the space, Drury stated, whereas a Boeing 737 aircraft ought to be capable of make an emergency touchdown even after dropping energy in an engine.
“There are extra questions than solutions, sadly,” Drury advised Al Jazeera.
He questioned why the pilots didn’t gradual the plane throughout touchdown, why they reportedly landed in the wrong way of the runway and why they landed past the conventional “touchdown zone” place.
“Pilots are skilled to gradual the plane down to simply above the stall pace to minimise floor run distance. Why wasn’t the runway foamed with flame-retardant materials?” Drury stated.
Muan Worldwide Airport also needs to have had security precautions in place to scare flocks of birds, equivalent to loudspeakers that mimic the sounds of shotguns, he stated, that are generally used at airports all over the world.
South Korea Chosun Each day newspaper reported that environmental affect assessments on the airport had really useful the deployment of sound cannons, lasers and warning lights, however the rollout of such measures had been delayed because of runway extension work.
South Korea on Monday started seven days of nationwide mourning, with flags flying at half-mast and Appearing President Choi Sang-mok travelling to the crash web site to pay his respects.
Officers stated that they had tentatively recognized the stays of 141 of the victims up to now.
As investigators labored to find out the reason for the catastrophe, authorities stated they have been contemplating finishing up a particular inspection of all Boeing 737-800s in operation within the nation.
Choi, who assumed his duties simply three days in the past after the impeachments of the president and prime minister, stated he had additionally directed authorities to hold out a sweeping inspection of the nation’s total aviation sector.
“As quickly because the accident restoration is carried out, the transport ministry is requested to conduct an emergency security inspection of the whole plane operation system to stop recurrence of plane accidents,” Choi stated.
