reuters.com
www.reuters.com

The deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday, when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.

  • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    4·
    4 days ago

    i hope the crash didn’t ruin the black boxes too much, usually on airport accidents it’s easier to investigate due to the whole wreckage being easily accessible (as opposed to sea crashes, where it could be under thousands on meters underwater) but if it’s that severe I’m worried they’re gonna find just a pile of scrap

  • toiletobserver@lemmy.worldEnglish
    121·
    4 days ago

    I am wondering if the pilot thought he had gear. Reason being the speed and location of landing seen in the video of the crash. Runways are typically extra long in case of this kind of thing.

    • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.worldEnglish
      29·
      4 days ago

      Comments on twitter indicate there’s weirdness however you look at it

      • suggestion of birdstrike but not landing with any configuration consistent with that

      • suggestion of loss of hydrolics but that wouldn’t prevent lowering of gear

      • landing 2/3rd of way up runway far too fast

      • no flaps extended

      Since gear and flaps are set far before runway whatever went wrong was quite far back.

      Slight possibility they had birdstrike on final approach and intended go around but then had another birdstrike and lost power (resulting in forced landing in flight configuration). shrugs

      • Fermion@feddit.nlEnglish
        4·
        4 days ago

        I watched a discussion from a former pilot who made it sound like the concrete structure that the plane ran into at the end of the runway was highly unusual and unnecessarily strong. Usually those locating beacons are mounted on very light plastic poles or on a tube frame. The heavy concrete foundation seems to be a significant factor in turning this from a rough emergency landing into a major disastor. I would imagine South Korea will revisit code for what kinds of structures can be built on the ends of runways after this.

        • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

          Yes most certainly. Also the runway was undergoing maintenance which shortened it by about 10% at the other end. They claimed it had no impact on the disaster, but I can see a pilot coming in under duress and perhaps little control giving too much clearance to the maintenance work at the near end and ending up touching down far too far along the runway

      • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        4 days ago

        Last one is possible if unlikely. Probably won’t know much more till the blackbox analysis is done. I am somewhat reminded of a rather famous crash that was caused by a pilot inviting his buddy who had some flight experience but not in that model of plane into the cockpit and had him do the landing. The buddy screwed up a couple of critical settings and the actual pilot didn’t notice until it was way too late to prevent the crash. Not that I’m suggesting anything similar happened in this case, it was just a very similar style of crash.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
          2·
          4 days ago

          And that one reminds me of the other one from long ago where the pilot invites a kid to sit in the seat, and in messing around the kid sends the plane into an unrecoverable crash.

      • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        4 days ago

        Not pilot.

        Go around is full power and still some flaps.

        If they were on final, and followed procedures correctly, they were set to land something like 5k out. If they had another birdstrike it would be in landing configuration, not clean.

        • kcuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          4 days ago

          You also generally don’t raise the gear until you have positive rate of climb, I only fly small planes, but the principal should be the same.

          This plane looks like it’s going way too fast and not in landing configuration. Maybe they couldn’t get the plane into landing configuration due to some failure, that would require them to keep their speed up (flaps/slats reduce the landing speed), but even then it looked like they weren’t slowing down, so maybe they were still under power?

          • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            Yup.

            Something you might be able to comment on that I haven’t seen discussed- are the reversers engaged? It looks like the cowling has come back, and if they tried but it didn’t engage (on account of being dragged along a runway at 140kt) the could still be proving thrust.

            • kcuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              4 days ago

              I’m not an expert, I only fly small piston planes, but watching the video the cowling has opened as they do when the thrust reversers have been applied, however the engines are dragging on the ground so I’d assume that forced them open. I’m not sure if opening the exterior would engage the thrust reverser (i.e. is the external mechanism tied to the internal mechanism so they move together, or do they move independently?), if not then we can’t conclude much from the video.

            • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              4 days ago

              Per comments on reddit, the thrust reverser did deploy on one engine.

        • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Yes thought I was probably wrong about that. Makes sense pulling gears isn’t a priority in go around. (So we’re not looking at them having retracted them)

          • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            All good - I can’t remember if gear is pulled in a go around, but I presume it would only be after they have established a climb… you don’t raise gear if your still going down.

            Something that wasn’t discussed- I think the reverses are engaged. The cowling looks like its been pulled back. You can’t go around once reversers are engaged.

              • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                4 days ago

                One of the few I can think of is asymmetrical gear - one side deployed but not the other. Will cause a plane to dig into runway and spin/disintegrate. Maybe gear up was the plan, but too fast and too heavy with wrong configuration.

      • deranger@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        4 days ago

        I really don’t think it’s hydraulics - there are five pumps, two engine driven (including if it’s turned off and windmilling) and three electric (which can be battery driven) across three independent hydraulic circuits. The plane was also well controlled on approach which means they likely still had hydraulic flight surface control.

        • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          4 days ago

          Once they unlock (mechanical) gravity can pull them down to lock. You just can’t get them up again and they create a lot of drag.

            • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6·
              4 days ago

              For people scared of flying - it is actually shocking how redundant and safe air travel actually is.

              The number of things that can fail, thinga they have thought about and have a perfectly flyable and landable aircraft is one of the great achievements in human history. They don’t even let pilots eat the same in-flight meal because of the possibility of food poisoning.

          • kcuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            4 days ago

            Every plane is different and you can certainly get stuck with the gear up or unable to support the weight.

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      Same touchdown zone regardless, but they could have floated while they waited for the non existent gear to touch down.

      Also explains the lack of spoilers and why the wings are still generating lift - they are usually set to engage when there is pressure on the gear.

    • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      4 days ago

      When you read about some length winning the lottery, do you run out to buy tickets?

      Air travel is still by far the safest.

      You’re way more likely to be suffer gross dismemberment on your commute or shopping trip than you are on a flight.

        • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          3 days ago

          Depends on the lottery and the number of lines you play, but yeah, that is true for what we’d consider a “proper” lottery win I think. Thanks for making the point even better.

          The odds of winning Powerball with a single bet are 1 in 292201338=C(69,5)*26. The odds of dying in a plane cash are 1 in 11,000,000 The Odds Of A Plane Crash Are One In 11 Million, Yet You’re Still Afraid.

          And this:

          You might think it is reasonable to believe it has become dangerous to fly after you hear about a passenger plane crashing in the media. You might think, “That’s it. Flying is definitely dangerous.” But I will counter that logic with the observation that we hear about people winning the lottery on a regular basis and we don’t suddenly conclude in response “Hurray. Winning the lottery is now within my grasp.”

          So don’t get thrown off balance when you hear about a plane crash. Your odds of dying in a crash still remain in five million.

          — Dr. Patricia Turner, Registered Psychologist, Calgary, Alberta

          https://turnerpsychologycalgary.com/anxiety-and-stress/fear-of-flying/

          Huh makes the exact same point I make, just better phrased and more helpful.