A fiery South Korean plane crash widely credited to failed landing gear has invited a flurry of speculation, including whether something more came into play leading up to the disaster.
“There are a million backups on this airplane. It’s extremely safe, and that’s what a lot of people are saying. They can’t understand why this airplane was landed on that runway at that speed with no flaps, with no gear. There might have been something else involved,” aviation consultant Mike Boyd told Fox News Sunday.
“A bird strike on an engine might shut an engine down, but there’s so many redundant systems there, it just doesn’t make sense. We’re not in the dark, but we know the runway is 9,200 feet. It’s a very long runway. It [the plane] did come in hot and high, hot and fast. We don’t know why that was the real issue.”
Eyewitnesses to the crash that killed 179 people said they observed flames in the aircraft’s engine and heard explosions, reports say. One described seeing a “flash of light” followed by smoke. Another said the plane was unable to land in the initial attempt and had to circle back around to try again before the crash occurred.
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Yonhap News Agency said authorities are investigating a potential landing gear failure stemming from a bird strike that may have caused the crash.
“That airplane was probably damaged more than we think, and it may not have been just the bird strike,” Boyd added. “There might have been other things that happened to that airplane. We don’t know, but it’s very strange to have that airplane land that hot on a runway where it literally was still going pretty strong when they hit that wall.”
The Jeju Air flight skidded off the runway and crashed into a concrete fence at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, roughly 190 miles south of Seoul, on Sunday, leaving only two survivors out of 181 onboard.
Footage of the incident shows the 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet sliding down the runway on its belly after its landing gear failed to deploy. The crash sent black smoke billowing toward the sky.
“The gear is not extended. The flaps are not extended, which would indicate that there was a major hydraulic failure of some kind there,” Boyd observed.
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“Even when there’s a hydraulic failure, there’s a mechanical way of dropping the landing gear. That was not done. I think we’re going to be kind of in the dark here ’til we find the cockpit voice recorder and the black box for this, because it looks like there was a bird strike from some earlier picture of it. They did vector the airplane around to the other end of the runway, so there was control but landing at this speed or coming down at that speed with the gear not down, it looks like that airplane suffered some major hydraulic failure of some kind.”
In a statement following the incident, Boeing stated the company is in contact with Jeju Air regarding the flight and is “ready to support them.”
“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” the statement continued.
The incident is being labeled the worst aviation-related disaster in the country’s history.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Chris Pandolfo and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
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