A second Jeju Air passenger aircraft has suffered landing gear problems a day after 179 people died when another jet operated by the same airline crashed in South Korea.
A jet operated by the budget carrier experienced an unidentified landing-gear issue and returned to Gimpo Airport in Seoul where it landed safely on Monday, according to Reuters, which cited South Korean news agency Yonhap as the source of its report.
This followed reports a bird strike may have been the cause of the devastating crash of the twin-engine Boeing 737-800 on Sunday which only two people survived.
Video footage shows the plane landing on its belly at Muan International Airport and skidding down the runway with no landing gear deployed before hitting a wall and exploding.
Several theories are circling the crash of the Jeju Air flight, including a bird strike warning issued by officials, a reported absence of landing gear and the weather, with no answers in sight yet.
In compliance with international aviation rules, South Korean officials will lead a civil investigation and involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was made.
Seoul’s Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan confirmed however that the runway’s length was not a contributing factor, and that the length and walls at the ends were built to industry standards.
The flight data recorder was found on Sunday morning, about 2½ hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder shortly after that, which revealed that in just a few minutes, the control tower issued a bird strike warning, the pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land.
Officials said it was not clear whether the aircraft had hit any birds and that after the warning and mayday, the pilots had attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction.
The South Korean government also confirmed the experience of the pilots, with the captain of the plane having worked at that rank since 2019 and logged 6823 flight hours and the first officer since 2023, with approximately 1650 flight hours logged.
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