Some thoughts on the South Korea crash

Initial thoughts on the crash of Jeju airlines in South Korea. As the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 en route from Thailand, approached South Korea's airport, carrying 160 passengers, it may have experienced a minor bird strike. Video footage from the ground appears to show one of the aircrafts engines suffer a mild explosion, which may have been caused by birds. However, in a later video, which shows the plane landing and crashing, the engines can be heard screaming, and the right engine has its thrust reverser engaged, indicating it is operational. The aircraft's high speed corroborates the view that any bird strike was minor. The pilots radio an emergency signal, and perform a go-around. They then skirt around the airport before immediately attempting to land upon the same runway from the opposite end. The video footage shows the aircraft hovering just above the runway, with landing gear not deployed, at high speed, before overrunning the end, and slamming into a concrete embankment housing radio antennae. A fireball erupts, and only two people survive.

Hypothesis: pilot error, with contributing poor airport design.

As said earlier, any bird strike was likely minor. However, it may have flustered the pilots, who sought to get the plane down as quickly as possible, despite the aircraft maintaining use of at least one engine. Why the landing gear was not extended is unclear. A mechanical error cannot be ruled out, as such incidents like LOT Polish Airlines flight 16 demonstrate. However, total failure of the landing gear is exceedingly rare, and in the event of a mechanical error, a comprehensive checklist exists for such a situation, and ought to be followed.

The pilots would have been expected to enter a holding pattern to try and troubleshoot the problem and provide emergency services with time to ready themselves, as was the case in the LOT incident, where firemen were able to cover the runway with foam to reduce friction for the belly landing aircraft. In that case, everyone survived.

In this crash, the pilots immediately tried to land. Regardless of the cause of the malfunction, this was reckless.

Furthermore, they did not lower the flaps, which are essential to configure the plane for landing, doubly so in such a situation. Why the flaps were not extended is unclear, but pilot error is far more likely than mechanical error. The aircraft then makes a fast approach and appears to hover along the runway, only touching down right before the end. This was likely due to the pilots being afraid to put the aircraft down, on account of their lack of landing gear. However, this meant that the plane was unable to stop in time, and it overran the runway.

When it comes to why the pilots may have made such massive errors, my assumption would be that fatigue played a role. It is the only reason that can explain such drastic errors. The plane departed at around 5 in the morning, so who knows how much sleep, if any, the pilots had the night before. Fatigue has been known to rob pilots of their senses, such as in the case of Colgan 3407, so it is a definite contender.

Conversely, if the bird strike did cause a major hydraulic problem, the pilots may have believed that the situation was more dire than it really was. Thus, rather than taking the time to manually lower the landing gear, they opted for an immediate belly landing in order to get the plane down. Exactly why they would be so panicked is unclear, as the engines can be heard screaming, and the stability with which it can be seen hovering along the runway suggests a good level of flight control.

However, the death toll likely would've been far lower had the final element not come into play: poor airport design. The areas around runway thresholds are designed to be clear of structures, the antennae are designed to be easily breakable, and many modern airports have special concrete surfaces beyond the thresholds designed to bring aircraft to a safe stop. None of these appeared to be present here. Rather, a renforced concrete wall was located right beyond the runway threshold. The wall was exceptionally sturdy, and the aircraft, moving at the speed it was, stood no chance.

Landing gear failure: likely pilot error, though mechanical fault is entirely possible given Boeing's recent history of cutting corners. Distraction from a bird strike may have flustered pilots, who may have been fatigued.

Death toll: improper airport design.