unaligned

Already 30 minutes behind schedule, the pilot flying the Jeju Air jet with 181 people on board was preparing to land at his destination in southwestern South Korea on Sunday morning when the control tower warned him about flocks of birds in the area. Two minutes later, at 8:59 a.m., the pilot reported a “bird strike” and “emergency,” officials said. He told the air traffic control tower at Muan International Airport that he would do “a go-around,” meaning he would abort his first landing attempt and circle in the air to prepare for a second attempt. But he apparently did not have enough time to go all the way around. Instead, just a minute later, the veteran pilot — with nearly 7,000 flight hours in his career — was approaching the runway from the opposite direction, from north to south. And three minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., his plane, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, slammed into a concrete structure off the southern end of the runway in a ball of flames. All but two of the 181 people on board were killed, most of them South Koreans returning home after a Christmas vacation in Thailand. The crash was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil and the deadliest worldwide since that of Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018, when all 189 people on board died. As officials were racing to investigate the crash, a central question has emerged among analysts: What happened during the four minutes between the pilot’s urgent report of bird strike and the plane’s fatal crash? Footage of the Boeing 737-800 landing at the airport showed it skidding down the runway without its landing gear deployed. As it hurtled along on its belly, engulfed by what looked like clouds of dust, smoke and sparks, it did not seem able to slow its speed before slamming into the concrete structure 820 feet after the end of the runway. “A big question is why the pilot was in such a hurry to land,” said Hwang Ho-won, chairman of the Korea Association for Aviation Security. When pilots plan to do a belly landing, they usually try to buy time, dumping extra fuel from the air and allowing time for the ground staff to prepare for the emergency, Hwang said. But the Jeju Air pilot apparently decided that he didn’t have such time, he said. “Did he lose both engines?” Mr. Hwang said. “Was the decision to land in such a hurry a human error?”<br/>

South Korea has determined that 179 of the 181 aboard a crashed Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 died in the accident. The disaster occurred during the morning of 29 December after the aircraft (HL8088) conducted a gear-up landing in Muan. It had just operated service 7C2216, an overnight flight Bangkok. Of the 175 passengers and six crew aboard, two crew were rescued with injuries, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency. The crewmembers were apparently located in the tail of the aircraft, the only part of the jet somewhat intact after it exploded when it hit a wall beyond the end of the runway threshold. The cockpit voice and flight data recorders have been recovered. These will play an important role in the inquiry into the disaster. Footage from the ground before the crash suggests damage to the jet’s right side CFM56 engine at 08:54 local time, allegedly from a bird strike. This apparently happened as the jet approached runway 1. The crew then circled around to the opposite runway 19. <br/>

A device that could shed light on South Korea’s deadliest plane crash is missing a critical component, authorities have revealed, potentially delaying the investigation into the cause of the accident that killed 179 people. The flight data recorder, which tracks aircraft parameters such as altitude and airspeed among others, is one of the two “black boxes” that South Korean investigators retrieved from the wreckage of Jeju Air Co. plane that exploded at Muan International Airport on Sunday morning. The FDR lost a connector that links the data storage unit to the power storage unit, a senior transport ministry official said. “An expert is continuously looking for ways to restore the data inside the recorder,” Deputy Minister for Civil Aviation Joo Jong-wan said at a briefing on Tuesday. The ministry will try to resolve the issue “as soon as possible,” Joo said, without clarifying how long it would take. Authorities secured another piece of evidence, called the cockpit voice recorder, which records radio transmissions and pilot’s voices, as well as engine noises. The two devices will be checked by a joint investigation group starting on Tuesday, comprising of US aviation authorities and officials from Boeing Co., the manufacturer of the 737-800 plane, Joo said.<br/>

Aviation analysts are considering several factors that might have contributed to a deadly plane crash in South Korea, including a concrete structure near the runway that the airliner slammed into, exploding and killing 179 of the 181 people aboard. Most airports don’t have similar structures in such proximity to runways, experts said. When they do, they are typically made of softer materials designed to break apart or absorb impact with minimal damage to a plane that overruns a runway. Details about the cause of the crash on Sunday of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, the worst ever on South Korean soil, are likely to remain unclear until investigators release their preliminary findings, expected in the coming month. Experts cautioned against drawing conclusions, including about the possible role of airport infrastructure, until a full review of evidence is complete. But in the days ahead, “investigators will be looking at that wall,” said Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit that provides safety guidance to the aviation industry. Barriers near runways “should break easily in the case of a runway overrun so the impact isn’t catastrophic,” Mr. Shahidi said. “What we saw here was a head-on collision with a concrete wall that appears very thick,” he added. The plane involved in Sunday’s crash, a Boeing 737-800, had taken off from Bangkok and was landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea’s southwest. As the plane was preparing to land, the airport warned the pilot about a potential bird strike. They aborted their first attempt at landing and descended from the opposite direction, which local officials said they were allowed to do. As the plane was landing, it did not appear to have activated its wing flaps and landing gear, touching down at a faster-than-normal landing speed. It skidded down the tarmac on its belly and rammed into a mound of earth surrounding a concrete barrier past the end of the runway. The plane then exploded into a fireball. The regions of an airport near runways, known as runway safety areas, are meant to provide unobstructed space for aircraft in the event they run past, undershoot or veer off a runway during landing. <br/>

A team of investigators from the U.S. government and aircraft manufacturer Boeing have arrived at the site of the Jeju Air crash at Muan International Airport to participate in the investigation into the incident, Seoul officials said Tuesday. According to Seoul's transport ministry, one member from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, three experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and four representatives from Boeing have joined officials of Korea's Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) for the investigation at the site of the accident. The U.S. team arrived in Korea on Monday via Incheon International Airport and traveled directly to Muan, some 290 kilometers southwest of Seoul, to prepare for the investigation. "Korean and U.S. investigators discussed the schedule procedures and specific areas of focus for the investigation," Joo Jong-wan, head of aviation policy at the transport ministry, said at a press briefing. Under the International Civil Aviation Organization convention, the country where the accident occurred is responsible for initiating the investigation.<br/>

Shares of South Korean budget carrier Jeju Air hit their lowest on record on Monday, after the deadliest air crash in the country killed 179 people. Jeju Air shares traded down 8.5% as of 12.12pm local time, after falling as much as 15.7 per cent earlier in the session to ₩6,920 (US$4.70), the lowest since they were listed in 2015. The share slide on Monday wiped out as much as ₩95.7b in market capitalisation. Shares of AK Holdings, the holding company of Jeju Air, fell as much as 12% and hit their lowest in 16 years. The crash on Sunday at Muan International Airport was the first fatal flight for Jeju Air, a low-cost airline founded in 2005 and the country's third-largest carrier by passenger numbers. South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operation system once the recovery work on the Jeju Air crash is finished. Among other budget carriers, Air Busan rose more than 15%. Jin Air and T'way Air fell after rising as much as 5.4% and 7.3%, respectively. South Korea's two major airlines, Korean Air Lines dropped 1.3% and Asiana Airlines fell 0.8%. "It will take time to assess the cause of the accident, but consumer sentiment will inevitably be hurt, as credibility is important for budget carriers whose seats and services are not much different from each other," said Yang Seung-yoon, an analyst at Eugene Investment Securities. "In terms of overall travel demand, there might be some cancellations in the short term, but it is unlikely to weaken structurally."<br/>

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has disclosed that a Russian offer to investigate the Embraer 190 crash in Aktau was “categorically refused” over concerns that it would not have been objective. Although Azerbaijan is a member of the Interstate Aviation Committee, which investigates accidents involving aircraft of state parties, the circumstances of the 25 December crash have generated political tensions between the two governments. Aliyev told the state broadcaster AzTV that Russian representatives must acknowledge responsibility for the crash, accusing them of “obvious attempts” in the immediate aftermath to ”hush-up” the cause. “If we had seen fair and reasonable steps by Russia in the immediate aftermath of the accident, we probably would not have objected [to the offer],” he said, according to the transcript published by the president’s official office. The Interstate Aviation Committee is ICAO-accredited and has led multiple high-profile investigations of civil air transport accidents, but was notably sidelined during a probe into last year’s fatal crash of an Embraer Legacy 600 carrying the leader of a private military organisation. Suspicion that military activity played a role in the E190 crash has led to concerns over the objectivity of a Russian-led inquiry, and the decision to gather an international team, headed by Kazakhstan, with Russian investigators among the participants. Aliyev says the initial theories are “quite reasonable”, indicating that the jet was externally damaged near Grozny, its destination, and “almost lost control”. “We also know that our aircraft was rendered uncontrollable by electronic-warfare means,” he says, while ground-fire “severely damaged” the aircraft’s tail. He adds that “the fact that the fuselage is riddled with holes”, along with the injuries to occupants and the testimony of survivors, ridicule initial claims of a bird-strike or oxygen cylinder explosion, although he accepts that the crew could have perceived the damage impact as a bird collision.<br/>

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has accused Russia of accidentally shooting down an airliner on Christmas Day in a disaster that killed 38 people, and covering up the cause. “We can clearly say today that the plane was shot down by Russia. This is a fact,” Aliyev said in a televised interview, according to a transcript posted on Azerbaijan’s presidential website. “No one can deny this fact,” Aliyev continued. “Again, we are not saying that this was done intentionally, but it was done.” The Azerbaijan Airlines plane was traveling to Grozny in Chechnya before it made an emergency landing near Aktau, Kazakhstan, the airline said on Wednesday. Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency first said the plane crashed after colliding with birds, though it later said Ukrainian combat drones and dense fog forced the plane out of Russian airspace. Perforations in the plane’s body that look similar to damage from shrapnel or debris led many to believe the plane was shot down by Russian air defense units, including a US official who told CNN that signs pointed to a Russian system striking the plane. “The fact that the fuselage is riddled with holes indicates that the theory of the plane hitting a flock of birds… is completely removed from the agenda,” Aliyev said in Sunday’s interview. “It is possible that when the plane was damaged, when it was hit, the pilot could have perceived it as a collision with birds. Because it would probably never have occurred to anyone that our plane might be fired at from the ground while flying over a country friendly to us,” he continued.<br/>

Flight records for the plane made by Brazil's Embraer that crashed last week in Kazakhstan are headed to the South American country so the data can be extracted, the Brazilian Air Force said in a statement on Monday. Data from the cockpit voice and flight data recorder will be processed in a laboratory run by Brazilian aeronautical investigators in the capital Brasilia, in a process that will be monitored by representatives from Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan, according to the statement. The data will then be sent to investigators in Kazakhstan. On Sunday, Azerbaijan paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane. The crash killed 38 people after Russian air defences were used against Ukrainian drones. The aircraft crashed last Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities.<br/>

Israel’s flagship carrier El Al said Monday that it has decided to extend the suspension of its flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow through the end of March. The move comes after El Al halted air traffic to and from Moscow last week, citing “developments in Russia’s airspace,” after Azeri officials said a passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday had been downed by Russian air defenses. “After conducting a comprehensive situation assessment, El Al is suspending all of its operations on the Tel Aviv-Moscow route until the end of the winter schedule,” El Al said in a statement. “The decision comes after ongoing dialogue with the authorities in the country to understand the situation.” Amid complaints from Israelis who said they had been stranded in Moscow, El Al told The Times of Israel that passengers with a canceled ticket on the Moscow-Tel Aviv route would be able to fly home from any destination in Europe they are able to get to, at no additional cost.<br/>

Air Arabia, one of the leading low-cost carriers in Middle East and North Africa, celebrated the launch of its latest route from Ras Al Khaimah to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The new non-stop service connects Ras Al Khaimah International Airport to Islam Karimov Tashkent International Airport with weekly flights every Friday, providing passengers with convenient, reliable, and affordable travel options, said the Sharjah-based carrier in a statement. The new service marks a new milestone in the airline’s continued expansion and contribution to the growth of the tourism sector in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, it stated. Air Arabia Group CEO Adel Al Ali said: "We are glad to start our direct flights between Ras Al Khaimah and Tashkent, further expanding Air Arabia’s network and reach."<br/>