An investigation into the deadliest air catastrophe on South Korean soil has discovered duck stays in each engines, in keeping with a preliminary report, suggesting the passenger jet hit birds earlier than slamming down on the runway.
Whereas officers haven’t but decided the reason for final month’s Jeju Air crash that killed all however two of the 181 folks onboard, the report launched on Monday stated feathers and hen bloodstains had been discovered contained in the Boeing 737-800’s engines.
“The samples had been despatched to specialised organisations for DNA evaluation and a home organisation recognized them as belonging to Baikal teals,” stated the report from South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board.
Baikal teals are a sort of migratory duck that fly to South Korea for winter in massive numbers.
The pilots made an emergency name whereas trying to land and warned of a hen strike. Air crashes are often attributable to a number of components and hen strikes are comparatively frequent.
The six-page report didn’t transcend factual particulars and a number of other questions stay, equivalent to why the jet deserted its first touchdown try after which rotated to land on the identical runway in the wrong way – a uncommon manoeuvre as pilots choose to land into the wind, which helps with stability and braking.
The jet touched down late on the runway at excessive pace with no touchdown gear deployed and no obvious use of the wing flaps, that are lowered for touchdown. After sliding down the runway, the aircraft hit a mud and concrete embankment constructed to accommodate navigation gear and burst into flames.
Investigators have been stymied by a scarcity of usable information from the black field recorders, which stopped recording about 4 minutes earlier than the airliner exploded. Beforehand, this has occurred when there was an onboard electrical failure.
South Korean authorities will probably be underneath stress to keep away from a repeat of the aftermath of the Sewol ferry catastrophe in April 2014 by which greater than 300 folks died, principally highschool college students. Many kin of the victims complained that it took authorities too lengthy to establish the useless and to determine the reason for the sinking.
Below world aviation pointers, a remaining report is anticipated inside a 12 months.
Reuters and the Related Press contributed to this report
Supply hyperlink
