According to a transcription of the part of the air traffic controller they obtained with the New York Times, Jeju Air Flight 2216 flight pointed out three different plans to land and kill 179 people in minutes when it crashed and killed 179 people in December.
The transcript shows that the pilot reported a bird strike and made a Mayday call when approaching South Korea’s Muan International Airport on the morning of December 29. They said they would turn left and then ask for a right, intending to approach the only runway at the airport from the south. When the failure occurs, the air traffic controller asks them if they want to land in the opposite direction, and the pilot says yes.
The plane landed on its abdomen, crossed the runway, and hit a concrete structure that contained navigation AIDS and exploded a deadly fireball. Only two people survived, this was the stewardess behind the plane, Boeing 737-800.
The cause of the disaster was the deadliest plane crash on South Korea’s soil, and communication between the pilot and the control tower could be a key part of the puzzle. That’s because it covers about four minutes, during which time both planes’ flight recorders (called black boxes) stopped recording.
The transcript does not include information about the two jet engines or their power supplies, which is a strong area of focus for investigators. It is not clear why the black box turned black or why there was no landing gear for the engaged plane.
The transcript was read out on Saturday by representatives of the board of directors to the victim’s relatives, which formed a board of directors investigating the crash. Officials told them that readers did not include parts of the conversation to protect participants’ privacy and said they shared it with The New York Times. Officials did not release the transcripts publicly, and the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several investigations, including one by police, are underway in South Korea for the cause of the accident and factors that may make it fatal, such as the solid concrete structure at the end of the runway. Investigators in the United States and France are assisting one of the investigations.
Most of what happened that December morning is still a mystery.
As the plane taking off from Bangkok approached Muan in southwestern South Korea, it began to descend, reaching an altitude of about 700 feet, and then fell into trouble.
First, issue a warning: Air traffic controllers tell pilots to be cautious because there are birds in the area. About a minute later, both of the plane’s black boxes (its flight data recorder and its cockpit recorder) stopped recording.
This power outage complicated the investigation. But the video taken by onlookers is a preliminary accident report released by the North Korean authorities, and now the transcript of the exchange between the pilot and the control tower provides some clues.
This is what we know:
At around 8:58 a.m., the pilot reported the bird strike to the tower and announced his intention to turn around. “Mayday, Mayday,” said a pilot. “Walk around.”
Authorities later discovered birds and blood in both jet engines, called Baikal Teals. The witness video also recorded the loud sound of the aircraft’s correct engine, which aviation experts described as damage in the compressor booth or engine airflow.
After Mayday’s call, the Control Tower told the pilot to “keep the runway title” and climbed to 5,000 feet. The pilot agreed.
Hyoseok Chang, assistant professor in the Department of Air Transportation and Logistics at Hansou University in South Korea, said this is a standard procedure. In this process, the aircraft climbs to a safe height and waits in the hold mode.
But a few seconds after the pilot agreed to the plan, before the plane reached 5,000 feet, the control tower pressed them to illustrate their intentions. They replied that they would turn left and land on Runway 1.
The pilot may have determined that “returning all the way to the holding point and trying to take another runway 1 approach may cause further problems with the aircraft,” Professor Zhang said. The compressor stall observed in the video shows that there is a problem with at least one jet engine.
Ten seconds later, the pilot reported that they could not land. They asked if they could “turn right and head to runway 1” and the tower allowed them to do so.
The transcript does not explain why this attempt failed. But after 9:01 a.m., the air traffic controller asked the pilot if he wanted to approach the runway from the north. “Do you want to land on Runway 19?” asked the controller.
The pilot said yes, the tower cleared them for landing.
Less than two minutes later, the plane hit the tarmac without deploying its landing gear. It slid across the end of the runway, hit the concrete structure, and exploded into flames.
It is unclear what air traffic controllers or pilots know about the concrete structure that houses the so-called instrument landing system. Under international security standards, these structures should be built for collapse, but this is not the case.
Agnes Zhang Contribution report.
