On the 29th of December 2024, a Boeing 737-800 operated by a low-cost South Korean airline crashed after an emergency landing and overshooting the runway at Muan International Airport in South Korea.
Jeju Air flight 2216 was a scheduled passenger flight in a Boeing 737-8AS, registered in the Republic of Korea as HL8088, enroute form Bangkok, Thailand to Muan International Airport. There were 175 passengers, four cabin crew and two flight crew on board.
On approach, the captain made a mayday alert, declaring “bird strike, bird strike”. He offered no further information as to what had happened to the aircraft.
The flight crew announced that they were going around. They turned and attempted to land in the opposite direction of the runway’s operation that day, going north to south. The landing gear failed to deploy and the Boeing landed on its belly, skidding some 250 metres off the runway before crashing into a concrete platform used for the airport’s Instrument Landing System antennae.
The collision killed all 175 passengers and four of the six crew members. The only survivors were the two cabin crew seated in the aft jump seats.
I’d been waiting for enough time to do a review of this crash but with new details coming out every day, it’s been difficult to create a comprehensive summary. Instead, here is a collection of some of the discussions around this. I hope that you all will add links in the comments as new details are released!
Aviation Safety Network
The listing at Aviation Safety Network has all of the basic details and media sources for more information
FlightRadar24
Ian Petchenik at FlightRadar24’s blog has done a short post on the ADS-B (navigation) data reported by the aircraft before it went offline. Bearing in mind ADS-B data is not perfectly accurate, especially at low levels.
Korean Herald
Byun Hye-jin at the Korea Herald reported that both the South Korean 항공·철도사고조사위원회 (Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board) will be heading the investiation with support from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Four minutes missing from recording equipment
Robert Plummer from the BBC reported that both the South Korean and US analysis of the cockpit and flight data recorders showed the recorders were missing the four minutes leading up to the collision. This crucially includes the time of the bird strike and landing attempts.
Thanks to Mike for highlighting that the aircraft went into service in 2009 while the US regulations requiring backup power for data recorders applied to aircraft manufactured after April 2010, which helps to explain how the final minutes could be missing, presuming the power was taken out by the bird strike.
On PPRune, user tdracer, who apparently worked on 737 engine control systems offers a possible explanation for the overrun.
The 737 does not use Weight on Wheels (WoW) to enable the thrust reversers. This was done early in the program (737-100/200) because it was discovered the 737 was prone to float in ground effect enough that it could prevent WoW from going true after touchdown – same with wheel speed. So the 737 T/R uses radio altimeter to enable the reversers. This has been maintained over the various versions of the 737, since the fundamental issue that resulted in using radio altimeter rather than WoW never changed. It could also help explain the long float resulting in a very late touchdown.
While I was in the business long enough to know better than to say “never”, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that a bird strike (or other damage) could cause the reverser to deploy (as in something like 10-12/hr.). It would require the failure of multiple locks – including the ones added after the Lauda 767 crash. It’s clear that the RH reverser is deployed in the available photos/videos (I haven’t seen anything definitive on the LH engine). The 737 thrust levers use a mechanical interlock that requires the lever be at the idle stop before the ‘piggy back’ reverse levers can be lifted to deploy reversers. That same interlock will keep the forward thrust levers locked at idle so long as the reverse levers are not stowed – it’s almost inconceivable that a pilot could think they were commanding forward thrust with the reverse lever raised and the thrust lever at idle. In other words, it’s highly unlikely that pilots were attempting a go-around after touchdown.
I see no evidence of speed brakes deployed in what I’ve seen. Normally, commanding reverse will automatically deploy the speed brakes, but that feature requires the speed brake handle to be placed in an ‘armed’ position prior to landing – so if they had failed to perform the landing checklist (for whatever reason), that would explain the lack of auto-speed brakes.
From the limited available data, I think the speculation that the left engine was shutdown (possibly in error) or failed – and the right engine was damaged and not producing sufficient thrust to maintain flight – is the most plausible explanation.
I’m not convinced that they suffered only a single engine failure — I can’t help but feel that the decision to go around followed by a quick turn back to the runway was motivated by a partial failure of the other engine, but that, at least, should be clear from the physical evidence, even without the flight data.
The preliminary report is expected at the one month anniversary of the crash, which will hopefully offer more information soon on what exactly went wrong in this case.
