South Korea's worst plane crash highlights dangers of bird strikes | Aviation news

Taipei, Taiwan – The fatal crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 in South Korea highlighted the risks that bird strikes pose to commercial aircraft.

The pilots told air traffic control that their plane encountered a flock of birds shortly before declaring a mayday and making an emergency landing at Muan International Airport, according to South Korea's Ministry of Transport.

Footage of Sunday's crash showed the twin-engine Boeing 787-800 landing on its belly on the runway without the landing gear deployed.

The plane then skidded across the tarmac before hitting a concrete wall and bursting into flames, killing 179 of the 181 people on board.

Geoffrey Thomas, the Australia-based editor-in-chief of Airline Ratings, said a bird strike was likely only a partial cause of the deadly crash.

Evidence suggests the plane had an electrical failure because it stopped transmitting location data — known as “ADS-B data” — to air traffic control shortly after the mayday was declared, Thomas said.

“It appears that these pilots were dealing with cascading failures, the exact nature of which we do not know. What we do know is that the ADS-B data stopped, they didn't open their landing flaps and they didn't deploy the undercarriage,” Thomas told Al Jazeera.

“We don't know why these things happen, but it all happened after air traffic control warned about a flock of birds,” Thomas added.

It will likely be months before investigators determine the exact cause of the crash, which is the deadliest air disaster ever to occur on South Korean soil.

South Korean authorities are investigating the crash along with the United States' National Transportation Safety Board in accordance with global aviation regulations, as the Boeing aircraft involved was manufactured in the United States.

Bird strikes are a relatively common hazard in commercial aviation, but rarely result in serious accidents.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 19,400 wildlife strikes – including birds – at US airports in 2023 alone. US airlines reported another 236 strikes in 55 countries that year, according to FAA data.

In the vast majority of cases, the most serious result is minor damage to the aircraft, with such incidents costing the industry about $1.5 billion a year, according to Thomas.

Thomas said bird strikes have become more common due to the growth of air travel, with more than 120,000 commercial flights each day worldwide, and the development of quieter aircraft.

Most often, however, aircraft that strike birds are completely unaffected, according to regulatory data.

Of the nearly 1,400 bird strikes in the UK in 2022 fewer than 100 caused aircraft damage or disrupted flights, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

While bird strikes rarely cause problems, they have been involved in several serious incidents over the years.

Investigators looking into the 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 have determined that an object — most likely a bird — activated a faulty flight control system that caused the plane's nose to pitch downward.

In 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in New York after colliding with a flock of birds shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. Airbus A320-214 managed to make an emergency landing in water with no casualties.

In 1995 24 Canadian and American airmen have died after their plane crashed at an air force base in Alaska following a collision with geese.

Doug Drury, an aviation expert at Australia's CQUniversity, said a bird strike alone should not result in a fatal crash.

Pilots were warned by air traffic control that there were birds in the area, Drury said, while a Boeing 737 should be able to make an emergency landing even after losing engine power.

“Unfortunately there are more questions than answers,” Drury told Al Jazeera.

He asked why the pilots failed to slow the plane during landing, why they reportedly landed in the opposite direction of the runway, and why they landed outside the normal “landing zone” position.

“Pilots are trained to slow the aircraft to just above stall speed to minimize takeoff distance. Why wasn't the track foamed with fireproof material?'' Drury said.

Mueang International Airport also had to have precautions to scare away flocks of birds, such as loudspeakers that mimic the sounds of gunfire, he said, which are commonly used at airports around the world.

South Korea's Chosun Daily reported on Monday that the airport's environmental impact assessments had recommended the deployment of sound cannons, lasers and warning lights, but implementation of such measures had been delayed by runway expansion work.

South Korea's acting president Choi Sang-mok, who took office just three days ago after the president and prime minister were impeached, on Monday ordered an emergency safety review of the country's entire airline industry.

“As soon as the accident recovery is done, the transport ministry is required to conduct an urgent safety inspection of the entire aircraft operation system to prevent the recurrence of aircraft accidents,” Choi said.