Fiery plane crash kills 179 in worst airline disaster in South Korea
Fiery plane crash kills 179 in worst airline disaster in South Korea
www.reuters.com
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.
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.
Comments on twitter indicate there's weirdness however you look at it
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
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.
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.
Wait... You can still put the landing gear down if the hydrolics are fucked?
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.
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.
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.