The wreckage of a Jeju Air plane that ran off the runway and crashed lies at Muan International Airport, in Muan, South Korea, on December 30, 2024.
Kim Hong Ji | Reuters
Aviation experts are questioning the role of the airport design that placed a pile of dirt and a concrete wall past the end of the runway, which Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 crashed into Sunday morning, killing all but two of the plane's 181 people on board.
Plane, A Boeing The 737-800 landed on the runway at Muan International Airport in southwest South Korea after an overnight flight, with the flaps and landing gear apparently retracted. The plane caught fire after colliding with dirt and a wall, where a GPS device was installed, which guides planes onto the runway.
“It certainly made it more difficult to stop the plane safely,” said Todd Curtis, founder of Air Safe Media, which tracks aviation crashes and other incidents. Curtis worked at Boeing for nearly a decade as a safety engineer.
It will take accident investigators months if not longer to uncover the cause of the crash, South Korea's worst-ever air disaster and the deadliest in years. They will Check everything From aircraft maintenance records to pilot scheduling to the engine to the cockpit voice recorders.
Family members of Jeju plane crash victims react as officials hold a media briefing at Muan International Airport, in Muan, South Korea, on December 30, 2024.
Kim Soo Hyun | Reuters
Preliminary evidence suggests that bird strikes may have played a major role in the possible loss of the engine. Experts cautioned that the investigation is in its very early stages.
Some aviation experts say that the number of deaths could have been reduced had the plane not collided with the concrete wall.
“You see the plane sliding along the road, slowing down, and everything is going fine until where it hits” the wall, John Cox, an aviation safety consultant, said in a video of the Jeju Airlines flight landing. And a Boeing 737 pilot.
Cox said he suspected the cause of death for most of the passengers on board “would be the result of blunt force trauma resulting from the collision with the wall.”
Barriers across airport runways are common and recommended by international aviation authorities and others.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration calls for a safety zone approximately 500 feet wide and 1,000 feet beyond the end of the runway to limit damage if an aircraft overshoots the runway. But the FAA says there are other mitigations within the Runway Safety Zone program, because many U.S. runways were built before the standard was established.
“Although the original RSA improvement projects are complete, the program continues to evolve in order to address safety risks and plan for future improvements,” the agency says.
At New York's LaGuardia Airport and others, for example, they have installed engineered material suppression systems, or EMAS, a crushable material that slows the plane off the runway and prevents it from sliding into more dangerous areas. In 2016, then-Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence's plane ran over a runway at LaGuardia Airport and was eventually stopped by emergency medical services.
The barrier at the edge of the runway at Muan International Airport does not appear to be breakable, or have the potential to collapse, according to video footage and expert analysis, something investigators are likely to focus on.
