South Korea’s transport ministry, on Monday, unveiled a preliminary report on an aeroplane that crashed in the country’s southwestern airport late last month.

The Jeju Air passenger jet, which took off from a Thai airport, communicated for landing with the air traffic control tower of the Muan International Airport, around 290 km southwest of the capital Seou.

This took place at about 8:54:43 local time on December 29, 2024.

While approaching the runway, the control tower advised the plane at 8:57:50 to be cautious of bird activity, before the jet’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) stopped recording at 8:58:50.

Six seconds after the discontinued recording, the aircraft made an emergency declaration for a bird strike during a go-around.

This is according to the preliminary report by the ministry of land, Infrastructure and Transport’s aviation and railway accident investigation board.

It said after flying over the left side of runway 01, the plane turned right and approached runway 19 to land on it.

The airplane belly-landed without its landing gear deployed, overran the runway, and crashed into an embankment, including the installed localisers, bursting into flames.

The localiser referred to a part of the instrument landing system providing aircraft with runway centerline guidance.

Four crew members and 175 passengers on board the ill-fated plane were confirmed dead, while two crew members were seriously injured.

The Jeju Air leased the Boeing-manufactured B737-800 in February 2017 and has operated it since then, according to the investigation.

Following the crash entailing fire and a partial explosion, both engines were buried in the embankment’s soil mound while the fore fuselage scattered up to 30-200 meters from the embankment.

The accident investigation board planned to tear down the engines, examine components in depth, analyse the CVR and FDR, and investigate the embankment, localisers, and bird strike evidence. 

(Xinhua/NAN)