2024 is finishing on an awful note when it comes to aviation safety. A few days ago, we saw an Azerbaijan Airlines jet crash in Kazakhstan, and now we’ve seen an accident in South Korea, which is one of the deadliest in the country’s history.
In this post:
Jeju Air 737 has deadly belly landing in Muan
This incident happened on the morning of Sunday, December 29, 2024, and involves Jeju Air flight 7C2216. The flight was scheduled to depart Bangkok, Thailand (BKK), at 1:30AM, and land in Muan, South Korea (MWX), at 8:30AM (there’s a two-hour time change between the airports).
The 2,170-mile flight was operated by a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 with the registration code HL8088. The plane had operated for Jeju Air since 2017, and prior to that, flew for Ryanair. Let me emphasize that the 737-800 is different than the 737 MAX, which has been in the news a lot. There were a total of 181 people onboard, including 175 passengers and six crew members.
The 4hr30min flight was mostly routine, until landing. One video shows the right side engine of the aircraft having some sort of an explosion at a low altitude. While it has been suggested that this was due to a bird strike, it could have also been something like a compressor stall.
The next video footage of the aircraft shows it landing on runway 19 at Muan Airport without gear. The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway at a very high speed. The aircraft struck a barrier past the end of the runway, caught fire, and sustained serious damage, breaking into two.
For what it’s worth, Muan’s runway is just over 9,000 feet long, so it’s not short. So far, authorities have reported that of the 181 people onboard, only two survived, and those were crew members seated in the back of the plane, which sustained the least damage. However, many of the bodies haven’t been recovered. My thoughts are with those onboard and their families, and may those who passed rest in peace. I simply have no words.
Below is a video of the accident, which is heartbreaking. Some people may find the video disturbing, so watch at your own discretion.
For those not familiar with Jeju Air, it’s South Korea’s largest low cost carrier, with a fleet of over 40 Boeing 737s. This is the carrier’s first fatal accident in its nearly 20 year history, since launching operations in 2005.
What could’ve possibly caused this crash?
It’s way too early to know what caused this accident. The details we know so far paint a very strange story. The below YouTube video from a pilot has a great rundown of what we know so far, and general considerations with a belly landing.
Obviously the biggest questions center around how the issue with the right engine translated into a belly landing. There are procedures in place for belly landings, and they can be performed safely. So I’m sure investigators will be able to determine why the aircraft was still moving at such a high speed at the end of the runway.
From watching the landing video, it’s interesting to note that the flaps and spoilers don’t appear to be deployed during the landing. However, the reverse thrust for the right engine was deployed (but seemingly not on the left engine).
While it’s possible (and perhaps even likely) that this is completely unrelated, it’s worth noting that this same aircraft had a diversion just over 24 hours prior to this incident. On December 27, 2024, the aircraft has operating flight 7C8135 from Jeju, South Korea (CJU), to Beijing, China (PKX), when it diverted to Seoul Incheon (ICN). The aircraft then reentered service after around five hours.
Bottom line
A Jeju Air Boeing 737 had a horrible accident while landing in Muan this morning. The aircraft had some sort of issue with its right engine on approach, and then moments later was seen performing a belly landing on runway 19 without gear, before catching fire after running into a structure past the end of the runway.
With 179 of the 181 people onboard presumed dead, this will prove to be the deadliest aviation accident since October 2018, when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX crashed.
What do you make of this Jeju Air accident?
I wonder what meal they served before landing... pork congee, or something with KimChi? So sad to be following this crash.
There seems to be rough consensus that whatever was initial issue, pilots did not do what it seems they should have done.
For why, possibilities seem to be:
- mistakenly focussed on trying to Go Around
- panic attack
- heart attack
- controls did not respond as desgined
- other?
How incredibly shameful for Korea and Koreans. Japan is a much more civilized country that respects human life.
Reporting is crazy inaccurate. Control "warned" of bird strike - did they warn the pilot that they saw the engine puff or that a bird strike could happen due to extant flocks? "Veered" off runway - no veering, it overran the end in a straight line. This "Dennis" pilot video sees exactly what I saw - none of the 3 gear down, no flaps/spoilers deployed, TR on engine 2 open, 1 closed. Appeared to float...
Reporting is crazy inaccurate. Control "warned" of bird strike - did they warn the pilot that they saw the engine puff or that a bird strike could happen due to extant flocks? "Veered" off runway - no veering, it overran the end in a straight line. This "Dennis" pilot video sees exactly what I saw - none of the 3 gear down, no flaps/spoilers deployed, TR on engine 2 open, 1 closed. Appeared to float long on flare, touched down late & overspeed, hit 25' earthen localizer berm between runway & security wall. No such berm on N end, why didn't they approach from S? Maybe bc wind unfavorable that way? Google Maps shows the berm.
Don't planes have a manual free fall landing gear release mechanism that can be deployed in case the hydraulic system fails? Did that also somehow fail? Very unfortunate accident in any case :(
It was not great. 179 people died in the crash. However 2 survived. There was 181 people in total. I feel so sad to see the plane crash and exploded.
What was the reason for the flight diversion 24 hours earlier ?
Sheep on the wings.
Yes, I’ve been drinking this evening ;)
"The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway"
Still accelerating after touchdown?!
The cause was that there was no landing gear.
But why on earth was the pilot accelerating at the very end??? The plane touched down at 134 knots and its last recorded speed was 154 knots. Something is very fishy in this situation. Rest in Peace to all the victims!!
"The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway at a very high speed. "
I don't think "accelerated" is quite what you mean. Assuming that forward thrust was no longer being applied by the engines after the plane touched down, it is physically impossible that the plane "accelerated". The friction of the plane against the ground would have caused deceleration. That deceleration was clearly not enough to...
"The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway at a very high speed. "
I don't think "accelerated" is quite what you mean. Assuming that forward thrust was no longer being applied by the engines after the plane touched down, it is physically impossible that the plane "accelerated". The friction of the plane against the ground would have caused deceleration. That deceleration was clearly not enough to prevent it from hitting the barrier "at a high speed" - but I doubt the plane was accelerating.
There could be an appearance of "acceleration" when the aircraft entered ground effect. However, the video picks up when the engines are on the ground. The wings are still generating decreasing lift.
Having taught the Boeing 737, there are many things that don't add up. Bird ingestion can cause engine failure, depending on the size of the bird, speed of the aircraft, etc. An engine failure is cause to declare an emergency, but the hydraulic systems are redundant and should continue to provide power necessary to control the aircraft. The pilot is going to require a LOT of left rudder to offset the tendency for the plane...
Having taught the Boeing 737, there are many things that don't add up. Bird ingestion can cause engine failure, depending on the size of the bird, speed of the aircraft, etc. An engine failure is cause to declare an emergency, but the hydraulic systems are redundant and should continue to provide power necessary to control the aircraft. The pilot is going to require a LOT of left rudder to offset the tendency for the plane to roll to the right. The landing gear is hydraulically actuated however, it is held up by "uplocks" that, upon actuation of the manual release will free fall and "should lock". The flaps may not deploy due to the hydraulic failure requiring a much higher landing speed. Thus, the pilot should request the longest available runway. It appears that the pilots did not touch down as close to the approach end of the runway. This too has to be figured into the approach and landing. I also note that there are NO EMERGENCY vehicles on standby. I'm betting that the investigation will show the engine failure but the accident was caused by pilot error.
Wow!
You are absolutely right…however for the flaps there’s the Alternate Flaps system which would actuate them electrically. But only to Flaps 15 instead of 30/40 like normal ops
@Win / Ben
Great informative content Win, it's appreciated.
Maybe not surprised that the fire equipment was not standing by if the Mayday was called on short final, but by then I assume hydraulic issues would already have been clearly known?
Ben consider reposting Win's comments in the body of your post...so many things about this accident don't make sense.
Wow! indeed.
You can conclude it's a pilot error from your bedroom using few minutes of footage.
NTSB should hire you ASAP.
In that case, we can conclude Eskimo writes his posts curled up in his basement bed.
He/she never has anything but sarcasm to offer. Never anything smart.
Hi Ben,
I love your blog and read it every day, sometimes several times a day. The content is great but one big thing that annoys me is when you update posts instead of making a new one.
Maybe that’s just me in which case, fine, I definitely won’t stop reading you over this. But it’s hard to keep track on what I’ve read already vs haven’t and what the updates are. For me, a...
Hi Ben,
I love your blog and read it every day, sometimes several times a day. The content is great but one big thing that annoys me is when you update posts instead of making a new one.
Maybe that’s just me in which case, fine, I definitely won’t stop reading you over this. But it’s hard to keep track on what I’ve read already vs haven’t and what the updates are. For me, a new post would definitely be better, even if that’s a shorter one just referencing the previous one. Those are just my 2 cents :)
Regardless, thanks for your work and wishing you a great holiday season and 2025 for you & your family.
Much better than Your Mileage May Vary which heavily censors comments or deletes them like a North Korean censor. YMMV lacks confidence and is trash.
As someone else has commented, it appears - both due to exhaust turbulence and the sheer linearity of the aircraft’s path (no yaw) - that the engines were under power until the end.
Terrible way to end the year.
Boeing needs to be held accountable for their terrible incidents and tragedies. An shining example of America having lost its way, putting profit over safety.
And you know it was entirely Boeing’s responsibility because …
For example, if it was an issue with the engines you would still blame Boeing.
Boeing also made the birds that flew into the engine. Shocking industrial negligence.
Having taught the Boeing 737 and considering the age of the aircraft, I can't see how Boeing (as bad as they have gotten in recent years) had anything to do with the accident.
I think Boeing built that concrete wall at the end of the runway which the aircraft collided with and exploded...... Someone will say Boeing paid those birds to get ingested by the engines.
Stop blaming Boeing all the time. Boeing has nothing to do with this incident.
Your handle is quite appropriate, because, like you, your opinions stink. If, as it appears, it's a combination of bird strike, engine failure, and pilot error, will you come back and apologize to Boeing?
For those more familiar with aviation, is not normal to have a barrier placed so close to the end of the runway? I would imagine you would generally want plenty of buffer space for situations such as these/overshoots, etc?
In tighter spaces, eg where there’s a major road near the runway, something like this is quite common to protect aircraft from jet blasts
That being said, this is usually complemented by EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System), which is a specially designed surface to absorb a lot of the aircraft's kinetic energy before it could even hit a barrier. FAA now mandates this for all US airports and it's becoming more common worldwide.
In the case of Muan, the wall is just bad design, as there's nothing to protect immediately to the north of the airport.
Do those EMAS designs assume that the fuselage is up in the air by the height of the landing gear?
Not sure that I would say it was a design fault if not - tradeoffs are always required.
But this incident might prompt additional thoughts.
Every downhill highway has a 'runaway ramp' for trucks, in case of brake failure, and not a concrete wall. How idiotic to have a concrete wall at the end of an airport runway, and not some kind of 'overshoot zone' that would stop a plane in it's tracks !
Gravel or similar would slow down if landing gear deployed, as trucks on wheels.
In this case with no landing gear there was no shortage of friction between the fuselage and the runway, but there was no/minimal/negative slowing down.
Because engines apparently still providing thrust.
Space would have made a difference, but a typical arrest zone would not.
Only 2 survivors confirmed. 85 are confirmed to have lost their lives, but it's likely to be 179.
Both of the 2 survivors were flight attendants seated in the aft galley.
Right at the back in seats with proper shoulder straps saved their lives.
And facing backwards?
@Albert ... absolutely
Now being reported that it was a second attempt at landing after a called in bird strike. On the first attempt they were unable to lower the landing gear and went around. A crew member also reporting that an engine was on fire prior to landing.
But that wouldn't impact the ability to lower the gear right? My understanding is the 737 has a manual process to lower each part of the gear even in the event of a total hydraulic failure. Doesn't appear flaps are down either. Will be very curious to see the report on this one.
The whole bird-strike-prevents-landing-gear-deployment angle is very odd. All will be revealed in due course, I'm sure.
According to the local news media, there was a bird strike in one of the two engines prior to the fatal landing. The first attempt at landing was aborted due to landing gear not properly deployed, and during the 1st go around the bird strike occurred and the engine flame ensued, leading due to the emergency belly landing.
In a side note, as far back as 2020, there had been a request to have...
According to the local news media, there was a bird strike in one of the two engines prior to the fatal landing. The first attempt at landing was aborted due to landing gear not properly deployed, and during the 1st go around the bird strike occurred and the engine flame ensued, leading due to the emergency belly landing.
In a side note, as far back as 2020, there had been a request to have the runway extended to prepare for this type of event. Unfortunately such request was rejected / postponed.
Is it normal to have the landing of everyday normal flights be recorded on video? This is going to spark conspiracy theories
They had declared emergency after a bird strike, and it was their 2nd landing attempt. Then it's normal to be recorded..
It is pretty normal. Aviation fans are pretty much filming landings 24/7 at airports. I would say its more probable than not that the next flight you fly on will be filmed by someone during either takeoff or landing.
Impressed that you got this online before AV Herald. That's a feat. I think?
Well it's evening in the US but after midnight in Europe.
It's a 'great' week for aviation accidents.
First Azerbaijan Air gets (most likely) shot out of the sky by (most likely) Russia
today Jeju Air crashes, most likely due to failed landing gear,
...and a KLM flight makes an emergency landing at Torp due to loss of control systems and smoke in the engine after takeoff from Oslo, while Norwegian did a runway overshoot at Molde and sent the aircraft fishing. But there...
It's a 'great' week for aviation accidents.
First Azerbaijan Air gets (most likely) shot out of the sky by (most likely) Russia
today Jeju Air crashes, most likely due to failed landing gear,
...and a KLM flight makes an emergency landing at Torp due to loss of control systems and smoke in the engine after takeoff from Oslo, while Norwegian did a runway overshoot at Molde and sent the aircraft fishing. But there everyone survived, so it's less tragic. Nevertheless, quite a week.
Are you sure it was Molde and not Bodo/Glimt?
"The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway"
You really think so? I would say it was just decelerating too slowly.
It also struck me as a wrong choice of words. The aircraft was not accelerating after touching the runway.
It could have been accelerating if the crew tried to do a go around.
Hm, a go round during a belly landing? Only plausible if they had no idea that the landing gear wasn't extended, AND they had some reason to do a go-round.
Ross, "The aircraft couldn’t come to a stop, though, and accelerated past the end of the runway" is technically accurate because the aircraft was experiencing a change in velocity, even if it was intended to stop. The word "accelerated" can apply to both speeding up or slowing down, depending on the context.
It seems rather odd that the flight diverted right before entering Chinese airspace the day before and then avoided Chinese airspace entirely on its fatal flight. I'm not saying that China had anything to do with the crash, but perhaps China had some concerns about the airline or that specific aircraft.
Hello, I am a Korean.
According to a Korean aircraft community post, the reason why the plane returned to Incheon during the flight a few days before the accident was not because of a plane problem, but because an emergency patient appeared.
Of course, it might be a lie because it's a community post.
It's normal for flights from Korea (and Japan) to avoid PRC airspace when going to/from southeast Asia. Bureaucratically, PRC airspace is such a PITA that it's usually less hassle to just go around.
The main reason for the avoidance is that China airspace is regulated heavily by the military and only allow small corridors of paths for all commercial airplanes. as a result, you get more chances of delays and unnecessary routing resulting in longer flight duration.
Just take a look at the live flight map of airplanes over China, its all following a very specific paths.
Exactly. China take aviation safety very high regards. Unusually high compared to their automotive industry for instance.
Perhaps because of high density cities where an accident would cause worst tragedy for people on ground than onboard and the amount of ridicule and speculation from the west of course. Despite more accidents are happening in the western world.
Anyway, I wonder if emergency was declared prior landing without landing gear. I wonder if there’s...
Exactly. China take aviation safety very high regards. Unusually high compared to their automotive industry for instance.
Perhaps because of high density cities where an accident would cause worst tragedy for people on ground than onboard and the amount of ridicule and speculation from the west of course. Despite more accidents are happening in the western world.
Anyway, I wonder if emergency was declared prior landing without landing gear. I wonder if there’s a landing gear system warning When you’re couple hundred feet agl but have landing gear up. I hope boeing had it but seems to be pretty logical warning to have.
Yeah because everyone other than Chinese know what happened to China Eastern 5735.
Go eat a giant pile of turd, you piece of shill "jkjkjk"
It looks as if the plane touched down just seconds before the video began. It confused me as to why the spoilers are not deployed, but overall the whole thing is confusing me. I don’t want to make any assumptions, so I will just leave it at that and pray for those onboard and their family.
Under "normal" circumstances, the spoilers on the Boeing 737 must be armed as part of the landing checklist. However, they are hydraulically actuated by a combination of "weight on wheels" and tire rotation. This aircraft had neither and thus the checklist will note that spoilers must be extended manually IF hydraulic power is available.
The tragedy of the modern digital era is that footage of accidents like this are broadcast before the task of rescue and recovery is even complete.
What terrible images to have burned into the memories of family members.
The tragedy of the modern digital era is we get inflicted with endless drivel on the most premiumest of premium airlines over and over by an insane fangurl who lacks even one iota of self awareness.
Me thinks, given the overall circumstances, John's snark was totally uncalled for. Shame, shame.
@John,
Come on guy, you can do better. Why are you letting someone live rent free in your mind?
Tim, I respectfully disagree with you here. It is a very positive thing that such incidents are captured on video now. This provides investigators with invaluable evidence regarding exactly how this happened, helping to determine why. Many lives can be saved.
If you don’t want to watch, heed the warnings and don’t watch.
having video available for accident investigation is good.
Having the fiery wreckage streaming live before the survivors and victims are pulled from the plane not only isn't necessary but it makes the job of finding out what went wrong much harder because the public and media has already decided - without the key information.
I didn't have any family members on the plane and I can live with what I have seen on this...
having video available for accident investigation is good.
Having the fiery wreckage streaming live before the survivors and victims are pulled from the plane not only isn't necessary but it makes the job of finding out what went wrong much harder because the public and media has already decided - without the key information.
I didn't have any family members on the plane and I can live with what I have seen on this and other accidents but there are indeed plenty of people in S. Korea that will live with the images of the crash for the rest of their lives.
Wow, looks like they are going full throttle on the ground, if it was a no-gear landing.
Horrifying is exactly how I’d put it. Wonder if the gears collapsed or something—I would assume that if the gears weren’t deploying correctly the pilots would’ve declared an emergency and adapted accordingly beforehand