Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/JUNG YEON-JE/YouTube/Sky News
Topics: World News, Travel
Callum Jones
Topics: World News, Travel
An aviation expert has described how 'unbelievably awful' the airport design was of where the South Korean plane crash happened.
South Korea remains in the midst of a seven-day period of mourning following the worst ever domestic civil aviation disaster in history.
The Jeju Air Flight 2216 crashed at the Muan International Airport, located in southwest South Korea approximately 180 miles (290km) south of Seoul, on Sunday.
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179 out of the total 181 people onboard have died, as footage from the airport shows the plane sliding along the runway before colliding straight into a concrete wall, where the aircraft was destroyed and came to a stop as a fire broke out.
While it is not clear exactly what happened to cause the incident, authorities have shared some theories as to why the Boeing 737-800 crashed, including the possibility of a bird strike.
Many aviation experts have spoken out following the tragedy, including David Learmount, who is the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine.
The aviation expert has spoken to Sky News about the incident, where he took issue to the design of the airport.
The concrete wall at the South Korean airport was part of a guidance system at the end of the runway, supposedly to help pilots land when visibility is poor or at night.
Learmount stated he hadn't seen a similar layout at other airports, as others speculate on the role of the concrete wall in the crash.
"That kind of structure should not be there. That [the design] is awful, unbelievably awful."
He added: “To have a hard object about 200m or less into the overrun, I've never seen anything like this anywhere ever before.
"There was plenty of space for the aircraft to have slowed down, come to a halt.
"And I think everybody would have been alive...the pilots might have suffered some damage going through the security fence or something like that.
"But I even suspect they might have survived."
Learmount continued: "Not only is there no justification [for the wall to be there], I think it's verging on criminal to have it there.
"That kind of structure should not be there. That is awful. That is unbelievably awful.
"He [the pilot] has brought it down beautifully given the circumstances, they are going very fast but the plane is still intact as it slides along the ground."