Jeju Air flight 2216 flew 13 times in just 48 hours and had previously been damaged in a runway accident before it was involved in one of the deadliest crashes in South Korean history, it has been revealed.
The Boeing B737-800 crash-landed on its belly before skidding off the runway and smashing into a concrete wall, erupting in a fireball and killing all but two of the 181 people on board.
The plane is believed to have experienced a landing gear malfunction during its descent towards Muan International Airport, 180 miles south of Seoul, after taking off from Bangkok on Sunday.
Airline bosses insisted that the plane had ‘absolutely no history’ of accidents or maintenance issues, but it has emerged today that the tail of the plane collided with the runway almost four years ago.
Described as a ‘tail skid’, the incident on February 17, 2021, saw a bumper attached to the rear of the plane’s fuselage scrape along the runway during takeoff from Gimpo Airport.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport reportedly imposed a fine of 220 million won (more than £100,000) on Jeju Air at the time, stating: ‘It is a violation of safety regulations to fly without properly checking for damage to a part of the plane.’
Minister Park Yong-gap today raised concerns that the incident was covered up, saying: ‘The plane involved in this recent accident also crashed during takeoff three years ago… Jeju Air claims that there is no history of accidents at all. Isn’t that a false explanation?’
Jeju Air said in a statement that it had classified the collision as a ‘non-accident’ under aviation law as the damage to the plane was not significant, defending its earlier claim that the plane had no accident history.
‘We have paid the full amount of the fine and completed all inspections and maintenance, and are now operating normally,’ the airline said in a statement.
It comes as industry experts have reportedly raised concerns that Jeju Air may have overused the plane in question in the days before the crash, scheduling excessive charter flights to meet the demand of the peak end-of-year season.
The Boeing B737-800 crash-landed on its belly before skidding off the runway and smashing into a concrete wall, erupting in a fireball
BEFORE: A satellite image shows South Korea’s Muan International Airport before the Jeju Air aircraft went off the runway and crashed
AFTER: Emergency vehicles are seen gathered at the crash site at Muan International Airport
Flight records cited by Yonhap news agency show that in the two days before the disaster, the jet traveled between Muan, Jeju Island and Incheon, as well as international destinations including Beijing, Bangkok, Kota Kinabalu, Nagasaki and Taipei.
Data also shows that Jeju Air had the highest average monthly flight time among the six domestic low-cost airlines in South Korea, between July and September this year, according to Korean media.
Jeju Air also paid the largest amount of fines between 2019 and August of this year, JoongAng reports.
Regional airports in South Korea are often reliant on charter planes operated by low-cost carriers such as Jeju Air, with travel agencies filling the jets with their passengers during the holiday seasons.
It was the first fatal flight for Jeju Air, a budget airline founded in 2005 that ranks behind Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines as the country’s third largest carrier by passenger numbers.
The accident happened only three weeks after Jeju Air started regular flights from Muan to Bangkok and other Asian cities on December 8.
Muan International is one of South Korea’s smallest airports but it has become much busier in recent years.
All domestic and international flights at the airport were cancelled after the accident, Yonhap reported.
This morning, another Jeju Air flight departed Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport for Jeju island, but was forced to turn around after a landing gear issue was detected shortly after takeoff, the South Korean airline said.
‘Shortly after takeoff, a signal indicating a landing gear issue was detected on the aircraft’s monitoring system,’ Song Kyung-hoon, head of the management support office at Jeju Air, told a news conference.
‘At 6.57 am, the captain communicated with ground control, and after taking additional measures, the landing gear returned to normal operation.
‘However, the decision was made to return to the airport for a thorough inspection of the aircraft.’
Soldiers have carefully combed through a field of reeds next to the runway
Mourners react near the scene where a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 series aircraft crashed and burst into flames at Muan International Airport
Rescue workers work near the wreckage of the Jeju Air aircraft that went off the runway and crashed at Muan International Airport
A relative of passenger at Muan International Airport on December 30
The wrecked tail section of the Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 aircraft that crashed and burst into flames is seen at the end of the runway at Muan International Airport
Local media reported that 21 passengers chose not to board an alternate flight to Jeju, citing concerns over safety and other reasons.
The airline has seen a surge in customers cancelling their flight reservations since Sunday’s incident, with a total of 68,000 tickets cancelled, Yonhap news agency reports.
Jeju Air’s 41 plane fleet includes 39 Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Seoul said on Monday it would conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes in operation in the country, with US investigators, possibly including from plane manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.
‘We are reviewing plans to conduct a special inspection on B737-800 aircraft,’ said Joo Jong-wan, head of the aviation policy bureau at the South Korean transport ministry.
Joo added that the government plans to ‘implement rigorous aviation safety inspections in response to the (landing gear) incidents’.
A total of 101 aircraft, operated by six airlines using the same model as the plane that crashed on Sunday, will be ‘thoroughly reviewed’, Joo said, adding that the inspections would last until January 3.
Sunday’s crash was the worst for any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, transportation ministry data showed.
Devastated family members of the victims have been demanding answers from the authorities.
Jeon Je-young, whose daughter Mi-sook was one of 179 who died on board Jeju Airlines flight 2216, says he still cannot believe what happened.
‘When I saw the accident video, the plane seemed out of control,’ the 71-year-old father said.
‘The pilots probably had no choice but to do it. My daughter, who is only in her mid-40s, ended up like this. This is unbelievable.
‘The water near the airport is not deep… (There) are softer fields than this cement runway. Why couldn’t the pilot land there instead?’
He added that his daughter was almost home safe, so had seen no reason to call and leave a final message. ‘She was almost home – she thought she was coming home’.
Five of the people who died in the tragedy were children under the age of 10, with the youngest, a three-year-old, losing his life alongside his parents as they returned home from their first family holiday in Thailand.
Kang Ko shared pictures of his family’s holiday on Instagram, including one of him excitedly looking out of the plane window as they flew to Thailand
Video of the plane’s approach show it hitting a bird, before it circled the runway and attempted to land with its flaps up. Experts believe this suggests the aircraft suffered hydraulic failure, which could have also prevented the landing gear from deploying.
Leading air safety expert David Learmount told Sky News that having a concrete wall at the end of the runway was ‘verging on criminal’ and said the collision with the object was the ‘defining moment’ of the disaster.
He suggested that had the wall not been there, the plane would have instead hit a fence, slid over a road and likely stopped in a nearby field.
However, Tim Davies, an ex-RAF Tornado fighter pilot, was skeptical this was the sole cause of the tragedy and feared ‘pilot error’ may have contributed to the disaster.
‘He was leaving the runway at more than 100 knots, you’re only going to experience death there,’ the aviation expert said.
‘If he landed at the beginning of the runway, he might have been able to slow down. But I fear he was coming in with too much speed and landed in the middle of the runway, that’s why he couldn’t slow down in time.
‘It’s a pretty common emergency that should have been dealt with. And the fact it wasn’t, probably comes down to the pilot.’
Airline pilots also chimed in, saying that the jet likely lost power on at least one engine and suffered a hydraulic failure after the plane was hit by a bird.
People stand as the wreckage of an aircraft lying on the ground after it went off the runway and crashed at Muan International Airport is pictured, in Muan, South Korea, December 30
Jeju Air flight 7C2216 is engulfed in flames as it slams into a wall following a crash after landing at Muan International Airport
Leading air safety expert David Learmount told Sky News that having a concrete wall (pictured in satellite image) at the end of the runway was ‘verging on criminal’ and said the collision with the wall was the ‘defining moment’ of the disaster
An unverified video grab reportedly of the Jeju Air plane shows a burst of fire coming out of the jet’s right engine supposedly showing the moment the bird struck
South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok pays tribute to the victims of the 29 December Jeju Air plane crash
Relatives of passengers of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 series aircraft gather at a make-shift shelter at Muan International Airport in Muan
After abandoning a first landing attempt due to a loss of power, the pilots touched down on the runway at high speed on their second attempt – without extending the flaps and deploying speed brakes that would normally slow the plane down.
The thrust reverser, used to slow down the aircraft once on the ground, was only deployed on one engine.
While the flaps and landing ear are powered by the hydraulic system, they can be extended manually in an emergency.
Captain Denys Davydov, who flies a Boeing 737-800 for Ukraine International Airlines, told the Times: ‘It seems they had hydraulics to deploy the one reverser but no flaps or landing gear… As a pilot of the same plane, it’s very strange.’
Some experts said that a bird strike alone would not have crippled the landing gear.
Australian airline safety expert Geoffrey Dell said: ‘I’ve never seen a bird strike prevent the landing gear from being extended.’
Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas said that bird strikes ‘typically don’t cause the loss of an airplane by themselves’ and questioned why firefighters didn’t attend to the aircraft as it was landing on the runway.
He said: ‘Why weren’t they in attendance when the plane touched down? And why did the aircraft touch down so far down the runway? And why was there a brick wall at the end of the runway?’
But Joo Jong-wan dismissed concerns about having the concrete wall after the end of the runway, saying that both ends of the runway have ‘safety zones with green buffer areas before reaching the outer wall’, the Independent reports.
He added that the airport was designed ‘according to standard aviation safety guidelines, even if the wall may appear closer than it actually is’.
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