[HN Gopher] Jeju Air Jet Crashes in South Korea With Over 170 De...
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       Jeju Air Jet Crashes in South Korea With Over 170 Dead or Missing
        
       Author : toomuchtodo
       Score  : 225 points
       Date   : 2024-12-29 01:40 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | https://archive.today/aX1Lw
        
       | denysvitali wrote:
       | The article doesn't mention it, but there are videos [1] on the
       | internet where the landing gear is clearly missing / not open.
       | Some sources report that the landing gear broke because of an
       | impact with some birds.
       | 
       | [1]: https://x.com/BNONews/status/1873174704720425440
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | > landing gear broke because of an impact with some birds.
         | 
         | That seems...improbable.
        
           | denysvitali wrote:
           | Yep, same thought - although I'm not an aviation expert. Some
           | people think the pilot "forgot" to deploy the landing gear -
           | which seems very unrealistic too.
           | 
           | I guess it's best to wait for an official investigation
        
             | verelo wrote:
             | Shockingly common in civilian aviation, it's actually one
             | of the most common causes for accidents. Not sure about
             | commercial but it was not uncommon in the military in the
             | 50s.
        
               | AYBABTME wrote:
               | Seems quasi-impossible on a commercial airliner. This
               | thing is going to beep and alert like hell about the
               | landing gears being up. The most likely cause is a
               | complex series of event that led to the landing gears not
               | coming down. Landing gears have multiple redundancies so
               | this is predictably going to be an unfortunately very
               | informative investigation for the aviation sector.
        
               | sio8ohPi wrote:
               | It has happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak
               | istan_International_Airline...
        
               | cjbprime wrote:
               | If your engine had a bird strike than the system is
               | already beeping and alerting like hell.
        
               | AYBABTME wrote:
               | The more likely scenario to me is that they attempted a
               | go-around after the bird strike and failed, leading them
               | to land with gears up, no flaps, at high speed.
        
               | wis wrote:
               | Not an aviation expert or enthusiast, but I'd imagine in
               | a commercial airliner if the gear was not deployed and
               | the pilot was trying to land, at a certain point the
               | plane would start yelling at the crew something like "NO
               | GEAR" "NO GEAR" "NO GEAR (deployed)"
               | 
               | So I don't think a pilot can just "forget" to deploy the
               | landing gear in a commercial airliner.
        
               | selimthegrim wrote:
               | TOO LOW GEAR
        
               | snypher wrote:
               | I think the 777 landing gear warning is based on flap
               | position, eg flaps 0 you won't get a warning, but you
               | will probably get a GPWS configuration warning instead!
        
               | aaronmdjones wrote:
               | > I think the 777 landing gear warning is based on flap
               | position
               | 
               | It isn't. If you're within a thousand feet of terrain, a
               | runway is nearby, and you're at an approach for landing
               | speed, it blares "TOO LOW, GEAR" in the cockpit over and
               | over again. If you're going faster than approach for
               | landing speed or there is no runway, it instead blares
               | "TOO LOW, TERRAIN".
               | 
               | Likewise if you deploy more than flaps 20 without the
               | gear extended (regardless of your height above terrain or
               | the presence of any runway), you get a master warning and
               | "CONFIG GEAR" in red on the EICAS.
        
               | buildsjets wrote:
               | Youtube is full of examples pilots landing gear up, with
               | the gear-up warning system clearly blaring in the
               | background.
               | 
               | https://youtu.be/5McECUtM8fw?si=DwasT3T_9vHxLczn
               | 
               | This does not only happen to little propeller airplanes.
               | Heres an Airbus A320 where the pilot managed to land gear
               | up despite the presence of all kinds of safeguards and
               | automation.
               | 
               | https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/pia-a320-crews-fatal-
               | lan...
               | 
               | Humans are funny animals.
        
               | likeabatterycar wrote:
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gINDzJXpMLU
        
               | Thorrez wrote:
               | It sounds like there was an engine out due to a bird
               | strike. The pilot might not have noticed the gear alarm
               | because of the engine alarm.
        
               | fransje26 wrote:
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_International_Ai
               | rli...
        
               | wat10000 wrote:
               | They say there are two kinds of pilots: those who have
               | landed gear up, and those who will. I've seen it happen
               | with small planes three times.
               | 
               | It should be quite rare on airliners due to having two
               | pilots and good warning systems. It's plausible that the
               | pilot would forget, but both of them forgetting and never
               | noticing the plane screaming at them is unlikely.
        
               | verelo wrote:
               | I want to agree but it has happened before, and with the
               | stress of some other failure it's not going to be
               | impossible...but it should be super rare.
        
               | wat10000 wrote:
               | It's definitely not impossible. Pilots can get fixated.
               | "That noise is so annoying! Never mind, gotta finish this
               | landing." It's rare enough that I think it's not the way
               | to bet here, and there was probably another problem. But
               | we'll have to wait for more info to know for sure.
        
               | likeabatterycar wrote:
               | > It's plausible that the pilot would forget, but both of
               | them forgetting and never noticing
               | 
               | Not drawing premature conclusions here without evidence,
               | but Asian airlines and aviation culture have a documented
               | history of the co-pilot not questioning fatal actions by
               | the captain in order to save face.
        
               | buildsjets wrote:
               | I know someone who had a no gear low-approach and prop
               | strike, pulled up, got the gear down, and landed straight
               | ahead. Not sure what to call that one, but I bet that
               | pilot won't do it again.
        
               | jdietrich wrote:
               | It's very easy to miss one alarm if there are several
               | others going off simultaneously, which is highly likely
               | if you've lost an engine due to a bird strike. Even if
               | you hear or see the gear warning, you might be too
               | cognitively overloaded to acknowledge and act on it.
        
               | weaksauce wrote:
               | the aviation term(probably others) for it is task
               | saturation and loss of situational awareness.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | Back in the day, there was a third crew member who was
               | primarily tasked with navigation and monitoring systems.
               | 
               | Airlines decided it would be cheaper to cut that position
               | and here we are.
        
               | AYBABTME wrote:
               | Manufacturers made planes that didn't need it, making
               | their plane's TOC more attractive.
        
               | echoangle wrote:
               | Aviation is still much safer than back in the days where
               | 3 or even 4 crew in the flight deck were standard. At
               | some point the tradeoff between increased safety and
               | increasing costs becomes unreasonable.
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | > Airlines decided it would be cheaper to cut that
               | position and here we are.
               | 
               | It's not _that_ easy tbh - the advent of digital
               | monitoring systems, fly-by-wire and glass cockpits
               | plainly eliminated the need for it.
               | 
               | On the other hand EASA is pushing for research into
               | single-pilot operations [1]... now _that_ is nuts.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/research-projects/emco-
               | sipo-ex...
        
               | inglor_cz wrote:
               | "here we are."
               | 
               |  _Here_ where precisely? Civil aviation is extremely safe
               | in 2024, and this crash made worldwide news precisely
               | because crashes are now very rare in the developed world.
               | 
               | If you demand 100 per cent safety, you are bound to be
               | disappointed forever. Not even walking is 100 per cent
               | safe.
        
               | hbarka wrote:
               | I'm reading from aviation experts that the fundamental
               | heuristic of "aviate, navigate, communicate" may have
               | been forgotten as a result of panic following the bird
               | strike incident (two minutes prior to the landing
               | attempt). How should this principle have been executed in
               | this situation?
        
               | harshreality wrote:
               | Panic is understandable momentarily, but any professional
               | pilot should be able to overcome that within a few
               | seconds, and remember their training, which in an
               | emergency is something like aviate, identify the problem
               | if possible, and run checklists. Panic doesn't solve
               | anything, and there's a comfort in having checklists and
               | procedures to run. Something must have gone very wrong in
               | training or with the plane for this to happen.
               | 
               | There's a standard short checklist for landing that
               | includes flaps and landing gear. There may also be an
               | emergency landing checklist that would also include those
               | things.
               | 
               | The voice recorder and flight data recorder almost
               | certainly survived. We'll know more after those have been
               | recovered and analyzed.
        
               | sokoloff wrote:
               | I don't want this to come across as second guessing a
               | cockpit that I wasn't in, but speaking generally, recover
               | the aircraft to a flying condition (aviate), if not on a
               | stabilized approach with high certainty of continuing to
               | be (mostly aviate and some navigate), go around and hold
               | at a safe altitude (A&N) while you run the checklists and
               | assess the aircraft state (A) and tell ATC what your
               | intentions are (communicate).
               | 
               | I don't know what the exact state in that cockpit was,
               | but the video of the aircraft sliding down the runway
               | sans gear at a speed that looked well higher and well
               | longer than normal touchdown suggests that they didn't
               | have a stabilized approach at the end, whether for good
               | or bad reasons is something for the investigators to
               | figure out.
        
               | weaksauce wrote:
               | the airplane is perfectly fine to continue flying for a
               | while on one engine so their momentary shock should not
               | have been an issue. they've trained extensively for this
               | kind of scenario and should probably have gone around if
               | the bird strike happened on final approach. like the
               | other person said... the voice recorder almost certainly
               | survived and will give more information as to the root
               | cause.
        
               | hbarka wrote:
               | It may have been both engines out and there was not
               | enough time to turn on the APU for landing gear
               | deployment. The belly landing was executed just fine but
               | tragically it was the wall at the end of the runway.
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | Isn't the point of rigorous pilot training and selection
               | to pick out those who will not be 'cognitively
               | overloaded' by a dozen or two alarms at the same time,
               | even under great stress?
        
               | cjbprime wrote:
               | Not every country/airline has "rigorous pilot training
               | and selection" -- US airlines require around 5x the
               | number of flight hours as non-US. There are, generally,
               | not enough pilots.
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | How is this relevant when the country, South Korea, is
               | known?
               | 
               | It's not a mystery where these pilots were licensed.
        
               | cjbprime wrote:
               | It is relevant that the US requires ~6x more flight hours
               | for airline hiring than South Korea, and the accident
               | happened in South Korea, no?
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | Can you link the source for the flight hour difference?
               | 
               | If true it does have some signal but it's not entirely
               | persuasive. After all there clearly are midwit pilots too
               | with a lot of flight hours, who just manage to scrape by
               | on each step of the way.
               | 
               | Edit: Who may very well perform worse in extremus than a
               | less experienced genius pilot.
        
               | cjbprime wrote:
               | The US FAA has required 1500 flight hours to receive an
               | ATP (airline pilot) certificate since 2010: https://www.e
               | cfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
               | 
               | South Korea requires 250 hours as a country (6x), and
               | Jeju Air specifically requires 300 (5x):
               | https://epicflightacademy.com/hiring-requirements-jeju-
               | air/#...)
        
               | AYBABTME wrote:
               | Are you taking that number out of your arsenal or from a
               | source? AFAIK most South Korean pilots are actually doing
               | their training in the US, since it's much easier to
               | accumulate the hours, and there's more GA. I would think
               | their training is about the same as US pilots.
               | 
               | Although the US airways system is much more developed and
               | used than Korea's, given that Korea is a smaller country
               | and has an extensive bullet-train network. So I could buy
               | an argument where US pilots just fly more.
        
               | seanmcdirmid wrote:
               | Most flights in Korea are international flights, so a
               | pilot for Korean air probably flies as much as a pilot in
               | the states. If the airlines need fewer flights, they
               | could just go with fewer pilots rather than the same
               | number of pilots flying less.
               | 
               | In the 1990s Korea and Taiwan had issues with accidents
               | caused by military pilots without modern crew management
               | cultures ("never question the captain", which is a big no
               | in modern commercial aviation), so they went with more
               | career pilots trained from scratch (at American schools)
               | rather than just transitioning military pilots into the
               | role.
        
               | cjbprime wrote:
               | You should probably apologize for the suggestion that I
               | am making up numbers.
               | 
               | The US FAA has required 1500 flight hours to receive an
               | ATP (airline pilot) certificate since 2010: https://www.e
               | cfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
               | 
               | South Korea requires 250 hours as a country (6x), and
               | Jeju Air specifically requires 300 (5x):
               | https://epicflightacademy.com/hiring-requirements-jeju-
               | air/#...)
        
               | AYBABTME wrote:
               | Oh sure, I do apologize, just wanted to know if the
               | numbers came from somewhere or if they were a wild guess.
               | Thanks for bringing up the references.
               | 
               | The difference is drastic indeed. I almost would qualify
               | for Jeju Air.
        
               | Mawr wrote:
               | Flight hours are not a good metric, experience does not
               | imply skill.
               | 
               | See:
               | 
               | - https://youtu.be/o6c3ENr_CRM?t=1731
               | 
               | - https://youtu.be/cUAYQTzXpsg?t=87
        
               | throwaway48476 wrote:
               | Flight hours are increasingly useless. The planes fly
               | themselves enough that there are serious problems when
               | something goes wrong and situational awareness is
               | lacking.
        
               | Mawr wrote:
               | Every single person's mind is going to become overloaded
               | at a certain stress & task complexity threshold.
               | Establishing where exactly that point is for a given
               | person is difficult/impossible - e.g. throwing pilots
               | into genuine life-threatening situations to test their
               | responses doesn't seem ethical.
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | Of course you don't set the bar at that exact threshold,
               | you set it higher so even after accounting for
               | difficulties of assessment there would still be a
               | comfortable margin.
        
               | aaronmdjones wrote:
               | > It's very easy to miss one alarm if there are several
               | others going off simultaneously
               | 
               | The GPWS would literally be screaming "TOO LOW, GEAR" at
               | you, over and over again. I find this difficult to
               | believe. Being too distracted or overloaded to respond to
               | it I can believe.
        
               | Roark66 wrote:
               | Perhaps there are too many alarms in case of a bird
               | strike in a modern airliner? "Hydraulic pressure
               | LOW","Voltage in System B Out of SPEC", "Cabinets in the
               | kitchen area Open", "and by the way,the landing gear is
               | not down".
               | 
               | One would imagine there are psychology experts at Boeing
               | and others who do nothing else all day ,but decide if one
               | or the other alarm should be prioritised and at which
               | volume (too low and they don't hear it, too loud and it
               | disorients).
               | 
               | It is a complex subject. I think in time we realise
               | removing the third crew member was an error.
        
               | aaronmdjones wrote:
               | Most of those alarms would only be shown as text on the
               | EICAS (Boeing) or ECAM (Airbus). Very few warning systems
               | (the most important, like GPWS, TCAS, RAAS, the engine
               | fire alarms, and the stall warning system) are aural
               | and/or tactile in their annunciation.
               | 
               | EDIT: For a practical example, low hydraulic pressure in
               | the left-hand system in a 777 would be yellow text on the
               | EICAS that says "HYD SYS L".
        
               | cjrp wrote:
               | I don't think any 737 variant has an EICAS
        
               | oefrha wrote:
               | > quite rare
               | 
               | This right here is literally a super rare incident --
               | hull loss + everyone-2 killed.
               | 
               | Having read quite a few Admiral Cloudberg[1] posts, task
               | saturation seems fairly common among fatal incidents
               | IIRC.
               | 
               | [1] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/
        
               | Eavolution wrote:
               | It has happened before due to another higher priority
               | warning suppressing the "too low, gear" warning, so if
               | there's a lot going on already including other warnings,
               | it's not inconceivable that it was overlooked and the
               | plane didn't issue a warning depending on the
               | circumstances.
        
               | Figs wrote:
               | If the plane can tell it's super low the ground -- low
               | enough to sound an alarm for it -- and that's a common
               | mistake... why not just have the plane automatically
               | deploy the landing gear?
        
               | hansvm wrote:
               | Doing so complicates other hairy scenarios because of the
               | increased hydraulic/power demands, reduced clearance,
               | increased drag on the plane, worse handling, and the fact
               | that in some emergencies you want a gear-up landing and
               | would expect pilots to simply make the opposite error
               | (forgetting about the gear being automatically deployed)
               | some fraction of the time.
        
               | Figs wrote:
               | Hmm. Are those situations more likely than forgetting to
               | put the gear down? (Serious question -- I don't know the
               | answer, and I'm curious.)
        
               | hansvm wrote:
               | I think so, and they're definitely more severe. Gear-up
               | landings occur in something like 1/150k flights, and
               | they're rarely fatal. Stalls happen in roughly 1/100k,
               | near-stalls more frequently, and if unrecovered then they
               | are almost always fatal.
               | 
               | The one plane I know of with auto-retracting gear had a
               | fatal stall because of the feature, so it's not exactly a
               | theoretical argument, but there haven't been a lot of
               | empirical studies.
        
               | tekla wrote:
               | You do not want auto gear down. There are situations
               | where having the gear down might makes much much worse
               | and you might not be able to be in a situation where you
               | can bring them back up.
        
               | hackernewds wrote:
               | this is why there are 2 pilots? doesn't add up
        
               | fransje26 wrote:
               | More pilots doesn't necessarily help..
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_1
               | 951
        
             | andsoitis wrote:
             | > although I'm not an aviation expert
             | 
             | In this case, you need to be an aviation and an avian
             | expert.
        
             | yardstick wrote:
             | With the engine issue 1km out, seems plausible the pilot
             | forgot while dealing with that issue.
        
             | fransje26 wrote:
             | > Some people think the pilot "forgot" to deploy the
             | landing gear - which seems very unrealistic too.
             | 
             | No, it happens.
             | 
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_International_Airl
             | i...
        
           | lifthrasiir wrote:
           | That seems to be lost in translation. In my understanding of
           | breaking news, some _engine_ (not a landing gear) was broken
           | due to the bird strike so the plane went around but landed
           | without landing gears down.
        
             | denysvitali wrote:
             | Yes, after reading a bit more sources it looks like one of
             | the engines failed 1km before landing. Not sure on why the
             | landing gear wasn't deployed though.
        
               | daedrdev wrote:
               | From what I read it's possible for a bird strike to
               | disrupt hydraulics. However there were probably a few
               | additional engineering or pilot errors because that
               | should not prevent a plane from putting down its landing
               | gear, and a lack of landing gear should not prevent the
               | plane from slowing down enough to not crash.
               | 
               | Its cases like these where I think the lining up of Swiss
               | chesse model for failure makes a lot of sense
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | A bird strike in one engine could disrupt hydraulics yes
               | but not all three circuits. It's weird. I'm sure there's
               | more to this story.
               | 
               | Also the landing gear can be extended though gravity even
               | without hydraulic pressure.
        
           | weaksauce wrote:
           | it is quite improbable. they can deploy landing gears using
           | gravity so unless the birds killed that system(they can't) it
           | was probably pilot error. just like in pakistan in 2020 that
           | destroyed the engines so they couldn't perform the go around
           | and they crashed.
        
         | hindsightbias wrote:
         | Looking at google maps it's not really clear why having a wall
         | at the end of your runway is necessary.
         | 
         | But 9100' isn't super short.
        
           | Mountain_Skies wrote:
           | Two possibilities come to mind. The first is that it's South
           | Korea so airports are military assets that need to be secure.
           | The other is that it's meant to protect the road and hotel
           | south of the end of the runway from aircraft overshooting the
           | end but that was intended for much lower speed collisions.
        
         | jarsin wrote:
         | People survived that? Looks like a giant ball of fire engulphed
         | the entire plane as it smacked into a wall going 100+ mph.
        
           | whimsicalism wrote:
           | nypost article i saw said two people confirmed _alive_
        
           | cjbprime wrote:
           | Two people survived it (or at least, they have survived it so
           | far) by being at the tail of the plane as it separated on
           | impact and avoided the fireball, I imagine.
        
           | 1659447091 wrote:
           | The AP article[0] list the survivors as crew members(flight
           | attendants). By looking at the main pic in the article with
           | only the tail section as looking anything like it was once a
           | plane, I am guessing they were saved from the brunt of it by
           | the back galley wall
           | 
           | > "Emergency workers pulled out two people, both crew
           | members, to safety, and local health officials said they
           | remain conscious."
           | 
           | [0] https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-plane-
           | fire-68da9b0bd5...
        
         | kumarvvr wrote:
         | Looks like back and front landing gear are not deployed. Highly
         | unlikely for that to happen due to a bird hit.
        
           | fransje26 wrote:
           | Agreed. Landing gears can be gravity-operated when hydraulics
           | are out.
        
       | lawgimenez wrote:
       | > The plane appears to have hit a concrete wall, according to the
       | photos.
       | 
       | Can anybody point out why there is a concrete wall at the end of
       | the runway?
        
         | denysvitali wrote:
         | By looking at the streetview image [1], and assuming this is
         | the correct concrete wall they hit, my best guess is that this
         | is just the "fencing" around the airport. Letting an airplane
         | run past the wall would have meant allowing an airplane to
         | cross a few streets past the end of the runway.
         | 
         | It would be nice to know what are the regulations around this
         | topic though, having a concrete wall at the end of a runway can
         | definitely be fatal (as we've seen here)
         | 
         | [1]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yFx9u1AE1kZhM9iW8
        
           | SteveNuts wrote:
           | Seems like a matter of "fatal for the airplane passengers"
           | vs. "fatal for the airplane passengers plus motorists"
        
             | kijin wrote:
             | Could be worse. There was an accident in Brazil a while ago
             | in which a runaway plane almost hit a gas station.
        
               | zetalyrae wrote:
               | This happened in Argentina:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAPA_Flight_3142
        
           | do_not_redeem wrote:
           | It looks like a trolley problem to me sadly. If that wall
           | wasn't there, the plane would have kept skidding (from the
           | looks of that picture) downhill into traffic for who knows
           | how long. Planes have a lot of inertia. And those look like
           | power lines just past that wall too; those would not help the
           | situation either.
        
           | neom wrote:
           | I was curious so I went and looked at what other airports do,
           | yyz, jfk, icn, lhr are all chainlink, some areas of yyz if
           | you over-ran and went through he chainlink, it looks like
           | surely you'd be on a road considerably bigger than the one at
           | Muan.
        
           | buildsjets wrote:
           | Here's a better streetview link. You can see the dirt berm
           | that the aircraft hit is located far inside the perimeter
           | wall. Also the wall is pretty dang thin and would not have
           | stopped a 737 like that.
           | 
           | https://maps.app.goo.gl/NHh9eDtAGGtZY9fH7
        
             | buildsjets wrote:
             | New pics in the media seem to show most of the wreckage
             | came to a stop between the dirt berm and the perimeter
             | concrete wall. At least one of the engines looks like it
             | reached and penetrated the wall.
        
           | drtgh wrote:
           | If the video we all are seeing is from this accident, then it
           | is not the fencing around the airport. It is some kind of
           | mound, apparently hardened earth with antennas from the
           | instrument landing system on it ( the fence seems to be
           | further back ).
        
         | buildsjets wrote:
         | There isn't one. There is a dip, and then a marshy area, and
         | then there is a soil berm that supports the runway lighting
         | system which is at the same height as the runway surface.
         | 
         | https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1108904845802471515...
         | 
         | I'd like to know if his runway had an EMAS system, and if EMAS
         | is effective against an aircraft without the landing gear down.
         | In satellite photos, both ends of the runway are marked with
         | yellow chevrons, which indicates that the surface is not
         | supposed to be taxiied on, and it has a blocky/pixelated
         | coloring which is typical of EMAS but I cant find an airport
         | facility directory that covers MXW.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_...
        
           | ranger207 wrote:
           | FYI the Discord image link will expire after a few hours. If
           | you could link the original source or reupload the image onto
           | another image host such as Imgur, that'd be nice for people
           | reading the thread later
        
             | buildsjets wrote:
             | So let it be written, so let it be done. Sorry, too late to
             | edit my original post, and the original was a webp that
             | imgur won't take so I had to screenshot it.
             | 
             | https://imgur.com/a/nu3wSZJ
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | Runway info: [1]. No mention of EMAS. There are chevrons at
           | each end, but EMAS markings are not yet standardized
           | internationally, which ops.group complains about.
           | 
           | At that speed, with gear up, and possibly still under power,
           | EMAS might not help much. Unclear from the video.
           | 
           | Expect more solid info tomorrow.
           | 
           | [1] http://aim.koca.go.kr/eaipPub/Package/2015-01-07-AIRAC/ht
           | ml/...
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | Better for planes to hit a concrete wall than take out a
         | neighborhood downstream from the runway.
        
           | blitzar wrote:
           | Unfotunately the neighbourhood downstream from the runway is
           | a field followed closely by a body of water.
        
         | hipadev23 wrote:
         | Because it's the start of the runway, not the end.
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42536707
        
         | loeg wrote:
         | (Essentially no discussion in the other thread.)
        
       | s5300 wrote:
       | Maybe the end of an airport runway should be some form of elastic
       | plane-load rated material & not essentially a solid wall.
        
         | buildsjets wrote:
         | There is such a system available. It's called EMAS. It's
         | unclear if it installed at this airport and if this accident
         | was within it's capabilities, if it was installed. But it did
         | save Mike Pence once. Also A-Rod.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_...
        
         | sokoloff wrote:
         | EMAS is common (
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arresto...
         | ), but many airports are built in areas where you're inherently
         | locked in and there's a choice of runway, EMAS, grass overrun,
         | but a fixed total distance available.
        
           | MoreMoore wrote:
           | Not sure what you understand with "common". According to that
           | wiki page, EMAS is installed on 112 runways in the US and
           | there are over 1000 commercial runways in the US (as of 2007:
           | https://www.icao.int/Meetings/AMC/MA/2007/9CCARDCA/9ccardcai.
           | ..). There are only 15 non-US installations and none of them
           | are in South Korea.
        
       | supernova87a wrote:
       | In this video of the plane going along the runway, it just seems
       | to me it's going very fast well into a no-gear landing. Like they
       | didn't set it down for more than half the runway (and the runway
       | was 9200 feet)
       | 
       | https://x.com/BNONews/status/1873174704720425440
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muan_International_Airport
       | 
       | The thrust reversers are open though? (maybe?)
        
         | cjbprime wrote:
         | They probably started trying to go-around (accelerating) the
         | moment they realized they'd landed half way down the runway
         | with the gear up.
        
       | amazingamazing wrote:
       | I'd be very curious to know where the survivors were seated on
       | the plane.
       | 
       | It's a miracle anyone survived.
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | Likely at the very back, which is nominally the safest place to
         | be on a plane.
        
           | buildsjets wrote:
           | Note that the survivors of the Russian shoot-down of the
           | Embraer 190 were all in the tail section. Nominally, of
           | course, as here have been accidents where the tail struck
           | first and that is where there were more injuries or
           | fatalities.
        
           | tim333 wrote:
           | Apparently the two survivors were crew sitting in the back,
           | so they also had the rear facing seats crew use.
        
       | brunohaid wrote:
       | Wow, that is indeed quite strange - that's a very high speed for
       | having scraped along a 9000 foot runway.
       | 
       | They either landed extremely long or it rhymes a bit with the
       | Pakistani Airlines accident of an attempted gear-up landing go
       | around a couple of years back, both not implausible in the
       | context of already dealing with a bird strike. There are also
       | edge cases where the plane won't yell Landing Gear at you, and
       | it's really really hard to get a 737 to a point where you can't
       | lower the gear anymore (multiple hydraulic systems failing,
       | gravity pins and pulleys as well, Stig Aviation did a great video
       | on that.)
       | 
       | Pretty sure there was no EMAS, as the plane dips down into the
       | dirt at the end of the runway right away, ie not that much lift,
       | and EMAS would do orders of magnitude more arresting.
        
         | buildsjets wrote:
         | I'm leaning toward no EMAS. I found a facility directory that
         | lists the size of the runway-end safety area where EMAS would
         | be but it has no description of any EMAS system.
         | 
         | https://aim.koca.go.kr/eaipPub/Package/2022-09-07-AIRAC/html...
         | 
         | I'm not sure EMAS would have helped though. I believe EMAS
         | relies on the weight of the aircraft bearing on the relatively
         | small contact area of the tires/wheels to punch thru the
         | unreinforced concrete. The weight of the aircraft distributed
         | across the area of the belly may not be sufficient to break
         | through the surface.
        
           | throwaway48476 wrote:
           | Plane was likely going too fast for EMAS to be effective.
        
             | gpderetta wrote:
             | And apparently EMAS require gears down to be effective.
        
       | verdverm wrote:
       | Quite a bit of links, information, and speculation on r/aviation
       | 
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1holbp4/jeju_air_...
        
         | dredmorbius wrote:
         | For those preferring old: <https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/co
         | mments/1holbp4/jeju_air_...>
        
           | RheingoldRiver wrote:
           | If you want to always use old.reddit and not have to rely on
           | being logged in: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
           | US/firefox/addon/redirector/
        
             | dredmorbius wrote:
             | Useful, yes, though not universally so.
        
         | loeg wrote:
         | Some guy's notes from that thread (fft82):
         | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IYwcfDV2gQ4KW7zfi_sAiowu...
        
       | tedd4u wrote:
       | Birdstrike #2 engine possibly captured on video:
       | 
       | https://x.com/Global_Mil_Info/status/1873181671375421703
        
         | buildsjets wrote:
         | Bird concentration chart for the airport, as published by the
         | Korea Office of Civil Aviation. Really not sure what they would
         | expect a pilot do with this information. Also not really sure
         | how they convince the birds to stay in the marked areas.
         | 
         | http://aim.koca.go.kr/eaipPub/Package/2022-06-30/pdf/AD/RKJB...
        
           | kylehotchkiss wrote:
           | I like Delhi's solution. They shoot cannons (unclear what's
           | in them) all day to keep the birds away from the runway. This
           | is probably super common, I just haven't seen it done
           | elsewhere.
        
             | kijin wrote:
             | They shoot blank rounds. The noise is what chases birds
             | away, and you don't want any stray projectiles flying about
             | in an airport.
        
               | buildsjets wrote:
               | Uh, no. That would be WAY too expensive and difficult to
               | automate. They run off of propane. Search your favorite
               | engine for "bird scare cannon". Or buy this one off
               | amazon.
               | 
               | https://www.amazon.com/SlavicBeauty-Wildlife-Propane-
               | Scarecr...
        
               | kijin wrote:
               | Not sure what they use in Delhi, but here in Korea we
               | actually have rangers who shoot blank rounds at birds to
               | chase them away at airports.
               | 
               | See first photo in
               | https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20230307131700056 (article
               | in Korean)
               | 
               | The machine in the second photo looks like a cannon but
               | actually sprays insecticide. The goal is to remove
               | insects that the birds feed on, giving them less reason
               | to approach the area in the first place.
               | 
               | Due to the proximity of most Korean airports to
               | residential areas and important military targets, an
               | automated cannon that makes explosive sounds at random
               | would be a big no-no. People would think the airport was
               | being bombarded, or more likely, the President had
               | declared martial law again :(
        
             | phil21 wrote:
             | It's pretty common, cannons or guns shooting blanks.
             | 
             | My son actually has a temporary gig for the next 3 months
             | at a major U.S. airport where he's tasked with flying a
             | drone to scare birds away as needed.
        
               | kylehotchkiss wrote:
               | I have to give him props, that is a pretty cool gig!
        
               | yard2010 wrote:
               | He probably already has props, but I'm sure he can use
               | some extras
        
               | rplnt wrote:
               | I remember airports having birds of prey that they would
               | keep around and deploy for this purpose. Drones are
               | probably much cheaper.
        
             | buildsjets wrote:
             | That only addresses birds on or very near the airport
             | property, and at very low altitudes. It's not particularly
             | effective, because the birds just move somewhere close by
             | and settle down. It can also be counterproductive, because
             | scaring birds generally causes them to fly. In the air.
             | Where the airplanes are.
        
       | deadbabe wrote:
       | It's been a very deadly year for airplane safety?
        
       | shepherdjerred wrote:
       | Is flying getting less safe, or are incidents just getting more
       | attention?
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | I don't think so, but if they broadcast all horrific car
         | crashes daily, people may really get spooked
        
           | winwang wrote:
           | ...makes me wonder if we should do that. would it lead to
           | safer driving?
        
             | imoverclocked wrote:
             | Aviation is safe largely because of training and adherence
             | to procedure. I'm not sure about elsewhere in the world but
             | the US population of drivers seems largely immune to both
             | of these things for driving a car.
        
               | rplnt wrote:
               | A lot of people see driving a car as a right, instead of
               | a privilege it is (or should be). It goes hand in hand
               | with little required training and lenient punishments.
        
         | keyle wrote:
         | I know it's technically safer to be in an airplane than a car,
         | but for some reason the helplessness of being inside a plane
         | always gets to me.
         | 
         | This idea of being in a metal barrel thrown at 900kmh relying
         | on a hundred years of fuck-around-&-find-out at the mercy of a
         | pilot who I do not know "but trust me". Yeesh.
         | 
         | Still, statistically, undeniably, the safest way to move
         | people.
        
           | wat10000 wrote:
           | So safe that it's getting hard to quantify in places. The
           | last airline passenger fatality in the US was almost seven
           | years ago. Compare with an average of well over 100 per day
           | on the roads. There's a lot more driving, but only by a
           | factor of ~10.
        
           | NotYourLawyer wrote:
           | > technically safer to be in an airplane than a car
           | 
           | Safer per mile. I doubt it's safer per hour.
        
             | mmiyer wrote:
             | No definitely safer per hour. "In 2022, the fatality rate
             | for people traveling by air was . 003 deaths per 100
             | million miles traveled. The death rate people in passenger
             | cars and trucks on US highways was 0.57 per 100 million
             | miles." [1] Adjusting for a speed difference of 10x it's
             | 0.03 for planes and 0.57 for cars. Which makes sense - it's
             | pretty easy to crash a car, and much harder to crash a
             | plane (there's not much to crash into in the air).
             | 
             | 1. https://usafacts.org/articles/is-flying-safer-than-
             | driving/
        
               | NotYourLawyer wrote:
               | Huh, interesting.
        
           | n144q wrote:
           | > at the mercy of a pilot who I do not know "but trust me"
           | 
           | Well, I trust a professionally trained commercial airline
           | pilot more than a random Uber driver any day. Literally been
           | on cars where driver is watching TikTok while driving, among
           | other dangerous behavior.
        
         | raincom wrote:
         | The dangerous parts of flying are landing and take off.
         | Everything else is safe.
        
           | Mistletoe wrote:
           | This is not the case near Russian airspace.
        
             | raincom wrote:
             | That's why SFO to Delhi is routed more towards the eastern
             | part of Russia after the war.
        
         | loeg wrote:
         | No and yes.
        
         | jonas21 wrote:
         | Flying commercially has been getting dramatically safer over
         | time:
         | 
         | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/aviation-fatalities-per-m...
         | 
         | The numbers aren't in for the current year yet, but they will
         | likely be just a little bit worse than 2019, placing this year
         | in the top 5 on record for safety (all of which have been in
         | the past decade).
        
         | bloodyplonker22 wrote:
         | Variance sometimes comes in groups.
        
         | franciscop wrote:
         | Flying can become safer WHILE also having more number of
         | accidents, by just having more people fly now than ever.
        
       | cyberlimerence wrote:
       | Tragically it appears that out of 181 onboard only two have
       | survived. If true, this would be South Korea's worst domestic
       | civil aviation disaster. [1][2]
       | 
       | [1] https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241229001054315 [2]
       | https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/29/south-kor...
        
         | shepherdjerred wrote:
         | After watching the video it's amazing that anyone survived
        
           | cyberlimerence wrote:
           | Apparently two survivors are the crew members who were at the
           | tail section. Even if (big if) their physical injuries are
           | not critical, they are likely permanently psychologically
           | scarred. I somehow doubt you can continue working in an
           | airline after that.
        
             | aaron695 wrote:
             | > I somehow doubt you can continue working in an airline
             | after that.
             | 
             | Like people in fatal car accidents never drive again?
             | 
             | Could we at least try and not jump to man-child
             | expectations for others.
             | 
             | I know it's cool to be a 'survivor' on Facebook, but in the
             | real world people work hard to move on even when they are
             | real survivors of fatal accidents.
        
               | Swenrekcah wrote:
               | Look I understand the sentiment to be annoyed by some
               | people think they are traumatised because someone called
               | them by the wrong name or called them a bigot or
               | something.
               | 
               | This is not that.
        
               | michaelsshaw wrote:
               | I think Aaron is referring more to the unreal
               | expectations placed on people who experience shocking
               | events. You'll hear things like "how can you still do
               | this?" Or being treated like not a person, but a vessel
               | to receive the sympathy of others. The expectations of
               | you being "fucked up" or "scarred" is imposed on you from
               | others and is obnoxious, if I'm being honest.
               | 
               | I'd go easy on him, it sounds like he may have
               | experienced that feeling recently.
        
               | Swenrekcah wrote:
               | Fair point, I didn't think of that possibility. And I do
               | agree, it is sometimes like people see those kinds of
               | traumas experienced by other people as marketing
               | opportunities for themselves.
        
               | potato3732842 wrote:
               | >The expectations of you being "fucked up" or "scarred"
               | is imposed on you from others and is obnoxious,
               | 
               | It's worse than that. Societal expectations of whether
               | one ought to be traumatized play a huge part in whether
               | people are traumatized. So all these people are making
               | the problem worse.
        
               | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
               | No one said "man-child" until you did.
        
             | andaja wrote:
             | " a Serbian flight attendant who survived the highest fall
             | without a parachute: 10.16 kilometres (6.31 miles) or
             | 33,338 feet ... She had little to no memory of the incident
             | and had no qualms about flying in the aftermath of the
             | crash. Despite her willingness to resume work as a flight
             | attendant, Jat Airways (JAT) gave her a desk job
             | negotiating freight contracts, feeling her presence on
             | flights would attract too much publicity."
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87
        
             | potato3732842 wrote:
             | Not everyone is that fragile.
             | 
             | A lot of people would assume that their odds of being
             | involved in two crashes are basically zero and go on
             | working.
        
               | IAmGraydon wrote:
               | To the contrary, the psychological reaction is likely "If
               | the nearly impossible could happen to me, the chances are
               | much higher than I thought." It may not be correct, but
               | traumatic experiences don't exactly lead to rational
               | thought.
        
               | CapcomGo wrote:
               | Interesting use of fragile - you must be an aviation
               | accident survivor? I would love to hear the details!
        
               | drowsspa wrote:
               | Yeah, calling "fragile" someone who's afraid after an
               | airplane crash has to be peak Hacker News
        
               | RealityVoid wrote:
               | To be fair, the way he worded it called them NOT fragile.
               | I think he has a point. We don't know how they are
               | mentally, some might be fine, some might be not.
               | Ascribing the way we think we would feel about it to the
               | survivors feels wrong somehow.
        
               | drowsspa wrote:
               | Some other people would recognize that the failures are
               | basically independent, so their odds of getting in
               | another accident is the same.
        
               | daedrdev wrote:
               | Its probably not entirely independent, anyone who knows
               | these two were the only survivors of a crash will
               | probably work to ensure things are extra careful
               | unconsciously
        
               | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
               | Fragile? Did you watch the video?
               | 
               | How bad must it be for you?
        
               | snozolli wrote:
               | _A lot of people would assume that their odds of being
               | involved in two crashes_
               | 
               | Their odds?! These are crew members. They likely looked a
               | good number of these people in the eye and interacted
               | with them before seeing them all violently killed in
               | front of them. That's a profoundly traumatizing
               | experience.
               | 
               | Additionally, our brains aren't wired for odds. A veteran
               | is unlikely to be hit by artillery in the US, but that
               | doesn't stop them having PTSD episodes when fireworks go
               | off.
        
           | nicce wrote:
           | Would it be reasonable to increase the length of the runway
           | (or longer non-blocking area) based on these incidents, even
           | if they are extremely rare.
        
             | EthicalSimilar wrote:
             | Do gravel traps work with planes..?
        
               | cjrp wrote:
               | There's similar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineere
               | d_materials_arresto...
        
               | kashunstva wrote:
               | Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) are installed
               | in the overrun area of many but certainly not all
               | runways. No idea about this airport. And I'm not sure how
               | effective EMAS is in a gear-up landing such as this
               | accident.
        
               | orbital-decay wrote:
               | EMAS does not help in a belly landing at all. It's
               | engineered to be crushed by the wheels.
        
       | nikolay wrote:
       | Why didn't they land on water?!
        
         | loeg wrote:
         | Runway is always preferable.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Unless the water ditch would have killed everyone, that's not
           | immediately clear.
           | 
           | Had they known what was going to happen they'd likely have
           | chosen some other option.
        
             | mango7283 wrote:
             | Unless the water is very calm it's quite possible to break
             | up and lose the plane and passengers on a water landing as
             | well.
        
             | loeg wrote:
             | Expectation in a water ditch is the plane breaks up and
             | everyone either dies on impact or dies of hypothermia or
             | drowns.
             | 
             | > Had they known what was going to happen they'd likely
             | have chosen some other option.
             | 
             | Yeah, absolutely.
        
       | cakealert wrote:
       | The extended footage shows that the plane was not slowing down
       | much.
        
         | kijin wrote:
         | No landing gears = no brakes.
         | 
         | There are a few other ways to stop a plane, but none are as
         | effective as applying brakes to the wheels.
         | 
         | The thrust reverser might not have been operational due to
         | earlier bird strike.
         | 
         | There are speculations that the pilot might have been trying to
         | extend the flaps and increase the angle of attack in a last-
         | ditch effort to slow the plane, resulting in a surprisingly
         | stable nose-up attitude as the plane skidded along the runway.
         | (This is not an easy thing to maintain. Most planes landing on
         | their bellies will skid sideways or roll over before long.) In
         | any case, this could be a misinterpretation as the pilot could
         | also have been trying to execute a go-around.
        
       | blindriver wrote:
       | Is there a reason why a runway landing was preferred over a water
       | landing?
        
         | ipnon wrote:
         | We don't know if the pilots were aware of emergency yet. It's
         | plausible they erroneously thought landing gear was down and
         | attempted a fatal go-around once the airframe hit the runway.
         | The SOP for broken landing gear is to land on the runway anyway
         | because you have immediate access to emergency services.
        
         | x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
         | Runway landing is _always_ preferred over a water landing.
        
       | tennisflyi wrote:
       | What does the QRH say to do in this circumstance?
        
       | tw1984 wrote:
       | WTF, why they have to put a wall at the end of the runway? so
       | sad. that is 170 real lives that could have been mostly saved
       | without that fxxking wall.
        
         | rand0mx1 wrote:
         | https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/norwegian-runway-overrun-...
        
         | brabel wrote:
         | Don't be outraged at rumors.
         | 
         | Here's the wall in question, apparently (I can't be sure that's
         | correct, of course, link taken from another comment):
         | 
         | https://www.google.com/maps/@34.9756691,126.381087,3a,53.5y,...
         | 
         | Does it look like it can stop a plane to you? No freaking wall
         | would do that.
         | 
         | Most likely it was the uneven terrain that caused the front of
         | the plane to hit a mound and caused the rest to collapse behind
         | it.
        
           | anttihaapala wrote:
           | It definitely hit _this_
           | https://maps.app.goo.gl/Npbyqgiy57y7jZDj7 instead.
        
       | mikequinlan wrote:
       | https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/A2024122913460001941?_...
       | 
       | Translation from Korean...
       | 
       | >Article
       | 
       | >The Korea Times
       | 
       | >Plane carrying 175 people crashes while landing at Muan Airport
       | 
       | >Reporter Park Kyung-woo
       | 
       | >Passenger KakaoTalk, control tower communication contents, etc.
       | confirmed.
       | 
       | >Engine flames during circling for second landing, fuselage
       | landing attempted at an urgent moment KakaoTalk conversation of a
       | Jeju Air passenger who crashed at Muan Airport. He told an
       | acquaintance that he could not land due to a flock of birds.
       | 
       | >KakaoTalk conversation of a Jeju Air passenger who crashed at
       | Muan Airport. He told an acquaintance that he could not land due
       | to a flock of birds.
       | 
       | >The Jeju Air passenger plane that crashed after straying from
       | the runway while landing at Muan International Airport was
       | confirmed to have collided with a flock of birds while
       | approaching the airport. This caused a fire in the engine, and
       | smoke and toxic gases entered the aircraft, causing the plane to
       | attempt a hasty landing.
       | 
       | >According to a comprehensive report by the Hankook Ilbo on the
       | 29th, the accident passenger plane was scheduled to land at Muan
       | Airport at 8:30 AM that day. However, while approaching the
       | airport while lowering its altitude for landing, a flock of birds
       | struck the right wing and engine at an altitude of 200 meters.
       | 
       | >The passenger plane gave up landing and raised its nose. It
       | seems that they judged that landing would be difficult. The Muan
       | Airport control tower received this report from the captain. The
       | captain then communicated with the control tower that he would
       | attempt a second landing and circled over the airport, but in the
       | meantime, flames broke out in the engine. An official familiar
       | with the communication said, "Despite the sufficient runway
       | length, smoke and toxic gases entered the aircraft, and an
       | emergency landing was made without time to take measures such as
       | draining fuel." "It seems that the engine system deteriorated, so
       | the electronics and hydraulic systems did not work, and that is
       | why the landing gear did not come down."
       | 
       | >In an emergency, the control tower reportedly had a dedicated
       | fire brigade on standby near the runway. An airport official
       | said, "If we had known about the landing gear failure earlier, we
       | could have dumped all the fuel (remaining in the aircraft) and
       | applied a substance to the runway floor that could increase the
       | coefficient of friction and cool the flames. However, time was of
       | the essence."
       | 
       | >During the second landing attempt, the runway approach and
       | landing angle were good, and the captain switched to manual
       | control. An airport official said, "After landing on the runway,
       | we had no choice but to rely on wing (engine) reverse thrust to
       | decelerate," and "Since steering was also impossible, we collided
       | with the outer wall at the end of the runway."
       | 
       | >A KakaoTalk message from a passenger on the accident plane was
       | also confirmed, suggesting a bird strike just before landing.
       | According to the message, at exactly 9 o'clock, a passenger told
       | an acquaintance, "A bird got caught on my wing, so I can't land."
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Give this a day to settle. There's a lot of misinformation out
       | there.
       | 
       | NYT: "Its landing gear appeared not to have dropped down from
       | under the plane, and the flaps on its wings apparently were not
       | activated for landing, Mr. Tonkin added. "The aircraft was
       | essentially in a flying configuration," he said. That meant the
       | plane was likely "flying faster than it would normally be in a
       | landing situation.""
       | 
       | That's consistent with the video. The aircraft is sliding down
       | the runway, lined up with the runway, going too fast, wheels up,
       | flaps up, possibly still under power.
       | 
       | "Why" is days away.
        
         | wuming2 wrote:
         | Given that The Guardian reported they attempted landing and
         | then took off again before the fatal landing happened, meaning
         | they had control and power, and that the airport sits on a
         | peninsula I wonder why not to attempt landing on water. Perhaps
         | sea was rough.
        
           | Arn_Thor wrote:
           | I don't think water is preferable to a runway, gear or not.
           | Both will be very hard surfaces indeed at the right speed,
           | and water has additional hazards that more than make up for
           | the fact it has more space.
        
         | Xixi wrote:
         | I'm not competent to judge, but from what I read on another
         | website, two additional elements [1]. On the video of the bird
         | strike flaps were deployed, but during the crash they weren't.
         | The plane did a 180o and landed on a different runway than it
         | was initially approaching (tailwind, making it worse).
         | 
         | This suggests (this is only speculation) a scenario akin to:
         | normal approach for landing -> brid strike -> go around
         | (retract flaps and full power on the remaining engine) -> loss
         | of power on the second engine (so no more hydraulic power, and
         | no power to climb) -> attempt to land in very unfavorable
         | conditions.
         | 
         | As you say, give it a couple at least a day if not more to
         | settle.
         | 
         | [1] airliners.net
        
           | briandear wrote:
           | Can't speak for Jeju, but at United flaps 5 is the go-around
           | flap configuration. Never heard of flaps zero on a 737 for a
           | go-around.
        
       | ajb wrote:
       | Discussion on prune (professional pilots rumour network):
       | https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/663324-jeju-737...
        
         | nextworddev wrote:
         | Interesting that everyone in the prune thread thinks bird
         | strike is not the likely cause, but something else
        
           | madaxe_again wrote:
           | Doesn't seem to be unanimous - reading through, one working
           | hypothesis is that the pilots were incapacitated or killed by
           | bird strike - not impossible - and someone else was
           | attempting landing.
        
             | nextworddev wrote:
             | Maybe I'm missing something - how would pilots sitting
             | inside the plane be incapacitated by birds on the outside
        
               | dannyw wrote:
               | Planes fly very fast
               | 
               | Commercial airliner windows are chemically strengthened
               | and designed to withstand bird strikes, but it's not
               | impossible if you're really unlucky.
               | 
               | See here for another plane with weaker glass: https://old
               | .reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/12iqve4/...
        
               | nextworddev wrote:
               | Ah thanks. But even then, there's two pilots for
               | redundancy, so it would take an extreme event that both
               | pilots got knocked out..?
        
               | TypingOutBugs wrote:
               | It won't be this. People on that forum talk about hitting
               | many more birds at much higher speeds with much less
               | issues. The landing gear should have been deployed before
               | the strike too? Happened at 200 meters I believe?
        
               | tim333 wrote:
               | That was a light aircraft with a very different
               | windscreen. The ones in airliners are very tough.
        
               | Moru wrote:
               | Someone not familiar with the front windshield of cars
               | might think they go straight through. Don't think
               | airplanes have any less strong windshields than cars.
               | 
               | A deep-frozen bird hitting the windshield straight on
               | might be a problem but a live bird hitting at less than
               | 45 degrees is not a problem for the plane or the pilots.
               | The bird becomes red mist.
        
             | rwyinuse wrote:
             | Extremely unlikely considering the speed of the aircraft at
             | the time of bird impact, and the fact the cockpit door is
             | locked & it would take some time from others to enter it.
             | 
             | To me this seems more like pilots mishandling the situation
             | after an engine failure caused by bird strike...
        
               | trollied wrote:
               | The previous worst Korean air disaster was mostly caused
               | by crew communication failures. See
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_801
               | 
               | I'll add that I'm not saying that is a factor in this at
               | all - the accident report will do that in time.
        
               | wbkang wrote:
               | This is from more than 25 years ago, there has been big
               | changes since then.
        
               | tedd4u wrote:
               | I'm glad to hear there have been big changes. However,
               | there is a more recent accident associated with a Korean
               | operator: Asiana flight 214 crash at SFO in 2013.
               | 
               | The NTSB identified poor crew communication and crew
               | resource management as important factors. Reuters and AFP
               | reported negative repetitional impact to Korean air
               | carriers.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
        
             | Arn_Thor wrote:
             | They seemed perfectly lined up with the runway and
             | descended at the right pace though. That'd be real tough
             | for a non-pilot to achieve.
        
               | antonium wrote:
               | There are auto-landing systems now.
               | 
               | There was a video of a layman in a pilot seat (in a
               | professional simulator) guided over radio landing plane
               | with just few simple actions.
               | 
               | Here, found it - https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsintere
               | sting/comments/1dhi0...
        
               | amelius wrote:
               | In every airliner model?
        
               | eps wrote:
               | Yes, of course. Even in paper ones.
        
               | TypingOutBugs wrote:
               | Then they'd have lost comms with the ATC which would have
               | been mentioned by now surely? With two pilots
               | incapacitated in a go-around procedure?
        
           | diggan wrote:
           | "Top Answer" as of right now seems to say they were trying to
           | go around but failed and tried to get out again, but
           | "probably" with one engine because of "bird ingestion".
        
             | eszed wrote:
             | The speculation in this answer also seems plausible:
             | 
             | https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-
             | calls/663324-jeju-737...
        
           | anshumankmr wrote:
           | IANAP but from what I know a plane can theoretically fly on
           | one engine.
        
             | tekla wrote:
             | Basically every commercial aircraft are required to at
             | least be able to fly straight and level on one engine. The
             | 737 NG can climb perfectly fine on a single engine,
             | especially since this one was at the destination and would
             | have burned off most of the fuel.
        
           | golly_ned wrote:
           | The article itself says the landing gear wasn't deployed.
           | 
           | > Yonhap reported that the landing gear of the Boeing Co.
           | 737-800 jet malfunctioned, causing it to land on its belly
           | without its wheels deployed. It then hit a wall at the end of
           | the runway.
           | 
           | From all the speculation about birds I'm guessing the article
           | was updated with this after many of these comments.
        
       | eddywebs wrote:
       | Whats up with all the plane crashes lately blaming bird hits.
        
         | kittikitti wrote:
         | There's no one accountable like Boeing if they can blame it on
         | a random bird.
        
       | blueflow wrote:
       | avherald: https://avherald.com/h?article=52225189&opt=0
        
       | panny wrote:
       | Okay, reading comments here, I'm expected to believe a bird
       | strike in the engine took out the landing gear, the pilot circles
       | for a while but didn't dump fuel in preparation for a crash
       | landing, and then pilot decided to land on the runway with a wall
       | at the end of it for no reason at all.
       | 
       | I'm losing faith in humanity as you guys are supposed to be the
       | smart ones.
        
       | throwaway290 wrote:
       | The same plane was in the news a couple of days earlier. Not a
       | technical issue but medical emergency, probably coincidence
       | https://www.ekn.kr/web/view.php?key=20241228028449548
        
       | stogot wrote:
       | CNN initially reported 170, then changed it to 47 and now reports
       | 170 again. I was hoping the 170 was a mistaken report
        
       | eggy wrote:
       | An informed take on what may or may not have happended:
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/w1r8dl4RqMw?si=BzEnCzbgv7oYNNwe
       | 
       | Only one engine was in reverse, and flaps were not down. The YT
       | video also excerpts manuals and diagrams to good effect for a lay
       | person who is not a pilot. Video of engine failing near airport
       | may have been bird strike. They were in flight 4+ hours, so fuel
       | should have been used to an extent, but don't they dump fuel when
       | they are going to land in an emergency like this? The fireball
       | was big, and they should have shut fuel pumps before flare up of
       | reversing engines on runway.
       | 
       | The 1-foot-thick concrete wall for the atenna array seems to have
       | caused it to impact hard enough to cause the most damage and
       | fireball. The video points out there are lots of these with less
       | robust structures at most airports.
        
         | tekla wrote:
         | 737 NG does not have fuel dump capability. Its hard to use the
         | thrust reverser if the fuel pumps are off.
        
       | byyoung3 wrote:
       | bird strikes dont prevent you from deploying a landing gear
        
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