CNN
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Moments before the crash of Jeju Air flight 2216, a passenger aboard texted a friend that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft had struck a bird.
“Wait a minute… we can’t land because a bird (or birds) caught in our wing,” the passenger said at 9 am local time, on a Korean messaging platform, KakaoTalk, according to messages widely shared in South Korean media, including CNN affiliate JTBC.
“Since when?” the other person asked.
“Just now… Should I leave last words?” the passenger responded, before contact was lost.
The possible bird strike, lack of landing gear deployment and concrete barrier all could have contributed to the aviation accident, which has been labeled as the deadliest in South Korea since 1997. However, the cause of the crash has yet to be determined just days after the tragedy. It could be months before we know why flight 2216 crashed. Sometimes, what the public believes caused a crash turns out to be far off base once an investigation concludes.
US officials, including the National Transportation Safety Board, plane maker Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, are working with South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board to provide more information about the incident.
Despite the crash, the Boeing 737-800 has a very strong safety record, unlike its successor 737 Max model that has had numerous problems. Boeing data from 1959 to 2023 shows the 737-800 recorded just 10 fatal accidents that damaged aircraft beyond repair, one of lowest rates in the industry when compared to the number of flights they’ve flown.
Additionally, South Korea’s safety record has been exceptional, according to Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit that identifies global safety issues to improve aviation.
He said South Korean airlines all have safety management systems in place and have done well with respect to International Civil Aviation Organization audits that have been performed. ICAO is the United Nations agency that helps 193 countries work together in air travel.
“This accident is very, very sad with the loss of life that we have seen,” Shahidi said. “It’s a complicated accident that involves many, many different factors that the investigators will be looking into to really understand the confluence of those factors that led to this disaster.”
Prior to the emergency landing, the pilot reported an emergency declaration and go-around due to a bird strike, according to Kang Jung-hyun, a senior official at the South Korean Transport Ministry. The control tower had warned the pilot of birds in the area before the reported strike.
The pilot declared “mayday, mayday, mayday” three times and used the terms “bird strike” and “go-around,” the official said.
Globally, wildlife strikes with civilian and military aircraft combined have killed more than 491 people and destroyed over 350 aircraft from 1988 to 2023, according to a report from the FAA. In the United States, wildlife strikes with civilian and military aircraft have killed 76 people and destroyed 126 aircraft from 1988 to 2023.
There’s still much uncertainty to how much a bird strike could have played into the crash.
The tragic even has so many layers, and everything at the moment is speculation, said Erika Armstrong, a pilot and former contract worker at Boeing. Armstrong is the director of marketing and vice president of business development at Advanced Aircrew Academy, an aviation e-learning firm that trains pilots, flight attendants and crew.
More concrete information will be available after investigators review the two “black boxes,” the flight data and voice recorders, from the crash site, she said.
A bird strike, she explained, could have caused an engine to fail in such a way that it may have knocked out the plane’s hydraulics.
“Never say never in aviation,” Armstrong said. “We train for engine failures all the time – it’s an expectation.”
Statistically speaking, bird strikes don’t happen often, however, in recent years, instances have been climbing. In 2023, 19,603 strikes were reported, an increase of 14% compared to the 17,205 strikes reported in 2022, according to the FAA.
Shahidi said if there was a bird strike, investigators will be looking if it destroyed one or both engines, which will be critical.
“From the time that the crew declared ‘May Day’ emergency, it was only about five minutes before the aircraft landed and crashed, so there was little time in that to for the pilots to be able to do what they needed to do,” Shahidi said.
Although, Armstrong said, even if her theory is true, it doesn’t explain why the landing gear didn’t deploy.
Footage of the crash on Sunday has been run by multiple South Korean news outlets, showing where the plane’s belly slides at a high speed, hits an embankment and erupts into fire.
The back and front landing gear are not visible in the footage. Experts later confirmed to CNN that the plane’s wheels used for takeoff and landing did not fully deploy before landing. There is no official explanation yet for why.
Armstrong said you can manually drop the gear on a Boeing 737, but, given the amount of time that elapsed from engine failure to landing, the pilots couldn’t have even begun to run through a checklist to drop the gear. She called it a “workout” for pilots to drop the gear manually.
The 101 Boeing 737-800 jets operated by South Korean airlines will be inspected this week, according to South Korean officials.
Another point of contention among aviation subject matter experts is the concrete embankment that the plane hit upon landing.
The crash killed 179 of 181 people aboard, aside from two crew members who were pulled alive from the site. The last deadly crash in South Korea occurred in 1997 when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed in the Guam jungle, killing 228 people. Many airports don’t have similar structures so close to runways, according to aviation experts.
“I just cannot think of anything more irresponsible than what (South Korea aviation officials) have done,” said Shawn Pruchnicki, an assistant professor in the college of engineering at Ohio State University. “In my opinion, they are responsible for the amount of people that were killed because of that design.”
He said the crash would not have been as deadly had it not been for the concrete embankment. Pruchnicki was also a witness at a US congressional hearing in April about Boeing’s safety culture.
The FAA defines the surface surrounding runways as “runway safety areas,” which are typically 500 feet wide and extend 1,000 feet beyond each runway end.
Shahidi said investigators will take a further look at the barrier to determine whether it was in compliance with international standards for runway construction.
“It’s just uncomfortable that you would put a concrete barrier, because what that does is that guarantees destruction and death to the occupants of an airplane that’s going to hit,” Pruchnicki said.
The two flight attendants seated at the back of the jet who survived, Armstrong said, probably didn’t feel the force of the wall.
US officials will wait for South Korean officials to release more information.
However, at least one US airline is working with investigators to learn more: Southwest Airlines.
“We are engaged with the FAA and Boeing and will take any steps they recommend as the investigation unfolds,” said a Southwest spokesperson in a statement.
Of course, critics of Boeing may have already begun pointing fingers at the plane maker and its year of faulty mistakes. Experts said it is premature to place the blame on Boeing until more information has been made public, but, as of now, there are no signs that the aircraft’s manufacturing was responsible for the crash.
Armstrong acknowledged it’s unseemly to point to pilot error but knows that the cause can often be the fault of the crew.
“The spotlight will always be drawn to the pilot training,” Armstrong said. “We’re definitely trying to run pilots through training much faster, trying to do it as efficiently as we can, but boy, until we hear the words from the pilot and the cockpit of what was going on, then we can spotlight where it needs to be.”
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations published a statement saying it is closely monitoring the developments related to the crash and working closely with local member association, ALPA-K. “The Federation urges caution against speculation in media and social media surrounding the accident,” the statement added.
There are three main things the National Transportation Safety Board will examine in investigations, according to Ed Malinowski, a retired senior air safety investigator for the NTSB and a former airline transport pilot: the pilot, the environment and the aircraft.
“When you get to an accident site, you capture as many things that will not be there tomorrow as they are when you get there,” Malinowski said.
ICAO will allow for US agencies, like the NTSB and FAA, to assist South Korea in the investigation, he said.
ICAO references 19 technical annexes to maintain uniformity in international civil aviation. Annex 13 outlines how accident investigation participation is determined.
Due to Annex 13, Boeing, the NTSB and the FAA have all declined to comment further on the matter, but the regulation requires the issuance of an accident investigation preliminary report within 30 days of the event and a final report, as soon as possible or within a year of the event.
In terms of any lessons learned, Shahidi said, it’s too soon to know. It’s completely understandable for passengers to be concerned about air travel when these incidents arise, but air travel remains safe, experts assured.
“What is important is to let the investigation now proceed,” he said.
CNN’s Chris Isidore, Yoonjung Seo, Billy Stockwell contributed to this report.
Initial reports suggest that there may have been a mechanical failure on the aircraft, leading to its sudden and catastrophic loss of control. However, some experts are also raising concerns about the possibility of human error playing a role in the crash.
Investigators are currently analyzing the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder in the hopes of uncovering more clues about what went wrong. They are also looking into the maintenance records of the aircraft and the training and performance of the flight crew.
As the investigation progresses, many are eagerly awaiting answers as to what caused this tragic event and what measures can be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Stay tuned for updates on where the deadly South Korean airline crash investigation is heading.
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