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Boeing 737 crashes with 180 on board in South Korea


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11 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

I found this breakdown helpful. He certainly seems to think they had at least 1 working engine and some flight controls for the flare.  

 

Interesting analysis but prefacing the entire discussion with a statement that "...the explosive growth of aviation overseas...." was probably worthy of a do-over. 

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I mean--I'm not doubting you.  Your explanation certainly fits the facts as we know them.  But that really would involve a cascading number of fuck-ups that is almost unimaginable.

If it turns out that a series of avoidable human errors happened, that’s a much harder reality to accept than the explanation that a freak bird strike or equipment failure occurred. Just the idea that maybe 179 people didn’t have to die on this one.

I would also assume most of us would like to believe the pilots are trained well enough and the plane is engineered in such a way to prevent a worst case scenario of poor decision making under pressure, resulting in catastrophic death.

I wonder if there’s any possibility of foul play. When the scarce surface level details don’t seem to make sense, perhaps there was a nefarious actor involved. Hopefully not, but I guess time will tell.
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22 hours ago, RPM said:

*Slats

 

12 hours ago, Mother mopar said:

Negative, they are called LEFs on other aircraft design series. (Stop thinking commercial)  I specific this in my previous post where I mentioned NOT this particular design series. 

I'm not in hydraulics but I do aviation consulting for a living.

The 737 has Krueger flaps, which are considered a LE device.

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10 hours ago, futureman said:

dumb question amnesty here but I infer from your statement that it was less difficult on older airliners?  it seems like if you “lose” everything you should still be allowed the control to manually do what is necessary to get the plane on the ground however possible in the “safest” way possible.  why would newer models take that away?  not sure if I asked that right but the idea that a newer, more advanced plane would be worse at something so vital in a disaster situation doesn’t make sense to me.  

Older aircraft had hydraulic controls where the stick and pedals were mechanically linked to the control surfaces. In the newer planes it's all fly by wire where the computer is adding additional inputs to control surfaces to achieve the outcome the pilot indicates with their controls

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13 hours ago, Mother mopar said:

Negative, they are called LEFs on other aircraft design series. (Stop thinking commercial)  I specific this in my previous post where I mentioned NOT this particular design series. 

I'm not in hydraulics but I do aviation consulting for a living.

Just going on my highly untrained WWII flight simulator experience. You mean things changed that much in 50 years? Inconceivable! 

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30 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Older aircraft had hydraulic controls where the stick and pedals were mechanically linked to the control surfaces. In the newer planes it's all fly by wire where the computer is adding additional inputs to control surfaces to achieve the outcome the pilot indicates with their controls

737 is not fly by wire.  All the main controls are hydraulic and mechanical.  

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16 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

737 is not fly by wire.  All the main controls are hydraulic and mechanical.  

Huh, I could have sworn there was a major computer input component added with the NG airframes. Maybe I'm misremembering the hydraulic boost "power steering" on the NG's and the spoilers on the MAX.

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Since speculation is warranted and productive, some interesting facts:speculation from those videos.

-Go around flight path did not allow enough time to do necessary checklists

-There are three independent hydraulic systems and one doesn't depend on engine power.  
- Landing gear can be lowered manually by pulling cables in cockpit but it takes "a long time" for the gear to drop

-Flight was a red eye, pilots could have been very tired

-Looks like RH thrust reverser deployed but not LH.  Suggest LH engine inop

-Pilots could have shut down the wrong engine and ended up with two disabled instead of one?

-Smoke in the cockpit from bird strike could account for the rapid go around and landing without doing checklists

-Dumb to have earthen and concrete berm at end of runway.  Bad design

 

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One interesting point the guys in one of those videos posted above made is that the video of the bird strike looks like it could be from a phone and depending on how it was being shot could be a mirrored image. I guess the insinuation if that was the case is that it could have been the left engine that took the bird hit as they later discuss that is the one that “appears” to be down in one landing video from end of runway. 

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2 hours ago, ClubWhatever said:

-Looks like RH thrust reverser deployed but not LH.  Suggest LH engine inop

Is there video that shows the left engine's thrust reverser closed? Maybe I missed it.

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-Dumb to have earthen and concrete berm at end of runway.  Bad design

Yep. The ILS locator antennae construction was atypical and not ideal to be sure, but the much bigger problem was that they came in long, touching down much too far down that runway. ... and that they came in very fast relative to normal landing speeds.

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9 minutes ago, wood said:

Is there video that shows the left engine's thrust reverser closed? Maybe I missed it.

Yep. The ILS locator antennae construction was atypical and not ideal to be sure, but the much bigger problem was that they came in long, touching down much too far down that runway. ... and that they came in very fast relative to normal landing speeds.

I think landing with the wind likely had something to do with them landing high and hot.  But that raises another question of why they flew a teardrop pattern to land with the wind rather than going around.

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Guessing bird strike, they did a go around, shut off the wrong engine, lost all hydraulics, panicked and thought let's just put this down.
Didn't do much of a checklist if they forgot about manual landing gear procedure.
Probably never started the APU.
Cultural issues, pilot error and panicked.

As crazy as it sounds, this is the best working theory so far. Unless there's uncontrollable smoke or fire, there's just no reason to rush like that.
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And the off season begins.

South Korea air crash recorders missing final four minutes

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the South Korean passenger plane that crashed last month stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, the country's transport ministry has said.

The crash of the Jeju Air flight killed 179 people, making it the deadliest air accident on Korean soil. Two cabin crew members were the only survivors.

Investigators had hoped that data on the recorders would provide insights about the crucial moments before the tragedy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr8dwd1rdno

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1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

And the off season begins.

South Korea air crash recorders missing final four minutes

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the South Korean passenger plane that crashed last month stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, the country's transport ministry has said.

The crash of the Jeju Air flight killed 179 people, making it the deadliest air accident on Korean soil. Two cabin crew members were the only survivors.

Investigators had hoped that data on the recorders would provide insights about the crucial moments before the tragedy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr8dwd1rdno

 

11 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

So does that lineup when the potential bird strike happened?

It's consistent with a loss of power following a bird strike to the engines, and that model of 737 didn't have a battery backup for the flight recorder

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47 minutes ago, Captainant said:

 

It's consistent with a loss of power following a bird strike to the engines, and that model of 737 didn't have a battery backup for the flight recorder

I would assume that the FDR and cockpit recorder are powered off the APU. Does this mean that APU wasn't engaged.  Isn't starting the APU practictly Step #1 after a power loss?

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I'm not a pilot, but it sounds more like a crap ton of pilot error.  Even if they did lose both engines to bird strikes (a la Miracle on the Hudson), they were airborne more than twice the amount of time that Sully was, plus they did a go around teardrop which would be next to impossible with no thrust.  Could the APU have been damaged and wouldn't start?  Maybe, but with the redundancy built into airlines I would think that would be highly unlikely.

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I just read that this 737 has no backup power for both the CVR and FDR. If both electronic circuits fail (ie both engines stop working), the 737 relies on a battry pack for emergency power, but the CVR and FDR are not powerd by it. Can any of you aviation types confirm?

From Reddit:

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The 737NG was designed before battery backups form FDR/CVR were required by the FAA. When the FAA required them, they didn't mandate that it be retrofitted so since this plane was built before the FAA mandate, it does not have battery backups for the FDR/CVR, this means that in the event of a total loss of AC power there is no power for the recorders.

 

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33 minutes ago, wood said:

I just read that this 737 has no backup power for both the CVR and FDR. If both electronic circuits fail (ie both engines stop working), the 737 relies on a battry pack for emergency power, but the CVR and FDR are not powerd by it. Can any of you aviation types confirm?

From Reddit:

 

well, I guess we can conclude with some confidence that a total loss of AC power means that both engines were not working four minutes before the crash

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On 1/12/2025 at 2:36 PM, wood said:

I just read that this 737 has no backup power for both the CVR and FDR. If both electronic circuits fail (ie both engines stop working), the 737 relies on a battry pack for emergency power, but the CVR and FDR are not powerd by it. Can any of you aviation types confirm?

From Reddit:

 

This is true for older models of 737s.  Around 2008 the rules were changed to require an self-contained battery source for the CVR, but airlines were not required to retrofit.

https://www.aviacionline.com/accident-in-korea-why-did-the-black-boxes-of-jeju-airs-boeing-737-800-stop-recording

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34 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

This is true for older models of 737s.  Around 2008 the rules were changed to require an self-contained battery source for the CVR, but airlines were not required to retrofit.

https://www.aviacionline.com/accident-in-korea-why-did-the-black-boxes-of-jeju-airs-boeing-737-800-stop-recording

Right. What I read somewhere is that they were allowed to comply under the old rule, which isn't great imho.

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