A total of 179 lives were lost on Sunday in what has become the deadliest air accident in South Korea’s history, when an airliner was belly-landed and skidded off the runway before erupting into a fireball upon impact with a wall at Muan International Airport.
Jeju Air’s (089590.KS) flight 7C2216, carrying 175 passengers and six crew members from Bangkok, Thailand, was being landed shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), as stated by South Korea’s transport ministry.”
Two crew members were reported to have survived and were being treated for injuries.
The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was also described as the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to the transport ministry.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was captured in local media video skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before navigation equipment and a wall were struck, resulting in an explosion of flames and debris.”
The crash was identified as the worst involving a South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam, where more than 200 people were killed, according to transportation ministry data. The previous worst incident on South Korean soil was recorded as an Air China crash in 2002 that claimed 129 lives.
It was stated by experts that the bird strike report and the manner in which the aircraft attempted to land raised more questions than answers.
‘At this point, far more questions are being raised than answered. Why was the plane travelling at such speed? Why were the flaps not deployed? Why was the landing gear retracted?’ said Gregory Alegi, an aviation expert and former instructor at Italy’s air force academy.
Under global aviation rules, the crash investigation will be led by South Korea with the automatic involvement of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) from the United States, where the aircraft was designed and built.
The NTSB announced that a team of U.S. investigators was being sent to assist South Korea’s aviation authority, with Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration also participating
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