Featured Image Credit: 9News/JUNG YEON-JE/Getty
Topics: Jeju Air, Korea, News, World News, Travel
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Jeju Air, Korea, News, World News, Travel
An aviation expert has weighed in on the devastating events that unfolded on South Korea on December 29.
On the day in question, a Jeju Air flight crash-landed at Muan International Airport, located 290km south of Seoul.
Horrifying footage shows the moment the plane skid onto the tarmac after its landing gear failed, before crashing into a concrete wall and erupting into flames.
179 people of the 181 on board the aircraft died in what's been dubbed as the country's most deadline plane crash.
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An investigation into the matter has since begun by South Korean authorities, but a cause of the crash is yet to be revealed.
There's been much speculation about it all though, with initial reports suggesting it was down to a bird strike.
In an update given on Tuesday (December 31), Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae said that pre-flight inspection of the Boeing 737-800, including its landing gear, showed 'nothing abnormal', BBC News reports.
Investigators have since started inspecting aircraft's black boxes.
While Korean officials haven't suggested any foul play in relation to the crash, aviation expert Professor Ron Bartsch has said 'something sinister' may have happened.
Speaking on Australia's Today, Bartsch said: "I suspect that the initial reports that have indicated that birdstrike or weather may have been a contributing factor, but to me, that's pretty unlikely that a birdstrike alone would be sufficient to bring down an aircraft or to foresee landing gear not to be able to be operative."
He continued, as per 9News: "Obviously the pilot would have known the high risk of landing without the availability of reverse thrust or flaps to slow the aircraft down coming into land.
"So it may have been, and this is only speculation, that there may have been something more sinister on board the aircraft that could have caused it."
Bartsch went on to described the Boeing 737-800 as a 'very reliable and safe aircraft'.
Elsewhere, others have said that the incident wouldn't have proven so deadly if the concrete wall wasn't near the runway.
In fact, David Learmount, who is the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine and an aviation expert, went as far as labelling it as 'criminal' having it there.
"Not only is there no justification [for the wall to be there], I think it's verging on criminal to have it there," he told Sky News.
"That kind of structure should not be there. That is awful. That is unbelievably awful."
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