Professor Jeong Yunsik: "There Must Have Been a Reason for the Nose of the Crashed Passenger Plane to Lift... Difficult to Assert 100% Cause of the Accident"

"Find Solutions to Prevent Future Accidents"

As eyewitness testimonies pour in regarding the cause of the Jeju Air passenger plane disaster at Muan Airport, various speculations have arisen, but the exact cause has yet to be determined. Professor Jung Yoon-sik of the Department of Aviation Operations at Catholic Kwandong University stated, "It is presumed that a bird strike was the beginning of the accident, but it is difficult to say with 100% certainty."

On the 31st, Professor Jung explained on CBS Radio's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' "If a 1kg bird flying collided with a passenger plane flying at 300km/h, the impact would be several times greater," adding, "If the bird was about the size of a duck with some weight, it could damage the fan blades (the parts that look like fan blades in front of the engine) and stop the engine."

The police forensic team is investigating the Jeju Air passenger plane disaster site. Yonhap News

Eyewitnesses to the disaster testified that the passenger plane collided with a huge flock of birds. Since it is unclear how many birds entered the engine, the possibility that birds entered both engines is also being considered. If that happened, even if the captain and first officer were both holding the control stick, it would be difficult to manually lower the landing gear (the devices such as wheels necessary for takeoff and landing). Regarding the speculation about the failure to manually lower the landing gear, Professor Jung emphasized, "It is the pilot's responsibility to handle bird strikes," and added, "Whether the pilot made the appropriate decisions and took proper actions on-site should be determined first through voice or flight data recorders."

There is also an opinion that a belly landing might have been difficult due to the characteristics of the Boeing 737-800 passenger plane. The Boeing 737-800 has relatively large engines under the wings, so the engines, rather than the fuselage, would touch the runway, resulting in less friction. Professor Jung explained, "It seems the pilot was aware of this and deliberately raised the nose to drag the rear part of the fuselage on the ground."

There are four migratory bird habitats around Muan Airport, making it the number one airport in the country for bird strike occurrence rates. There are also voices of criticism that thorough countermeasures should have been in place. Professor Jung pointed out that the operation rate of Muan Airport was too low, so bird deterrence operations were not well conducted. He said, "Since personnel are only needed at necessary times, it seems that not many people were required," emphasizing, "Improvement measures such as deploying more personnel during peak times are needed." He added, "It is also important to quickly find improvement measures for the incident to prevent future accidents."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.