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A Boeing 737-800 has crashed whilst landing at Muan Airport in South Korea, video shows the undercarriage is not down.177 have died in the accident.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4glr85l2ldt

The first news I saw I think mentioned everyone on board having perished, then some posts online about a small number of survivors. A later count I saw was slightly higher than the number you posted. The number you mentioned, though, looks to be accurate.

Some different ideas about birdstrikes have gone around online, too, and reports are that such hazards were reported as a possibility on approach to the aircraft. Hoping for more definite answers.

Latest information is now saying 179 lives lost.

Their is a video online claiming to show the aircraft on approach and a possible birdstrike is shown in the righthand engine as the aircraft passes overhead.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the control tower warned Flight 2216 of a bird strike just before landing. About one minute after the bird strike warning, the pilot issued a 'Mayday'.
Video footage show the aircraft landing gear up on runway 19, the opposite direction of the initial approach and intended landing direction.

ASN features a number of videos relating to the incident.
https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/468716

The last info I saw was that there were two survivors, both members of the cabin crew.

There is so much information that's missing here (to be filled in later, of course), since the loss of power in one engine due to bird strike typically doesn't lead to a wheels up landing. Not that it's impossible, just not the norm.

The landing seemed to be accomplished quite well, which if they hadn't impacted the ILS equipment and dirt(?) berm at the end, this would have been an incredibly survivable event. It's difficult to see were the aircraft actually touched down, but the video that shows the impact seems to indicate that it touched down somewhere after the midpoint of the runway.

ShyFlyer wrote:if they hadn't impacted the ILS equipment and dirt(?) berm at the end, this would have been an incredibly survivable event.

I couldn't work out, from the stills I'd seen, how the hell they'd managed to dig up the localizer; that they could've done it from underneath simply never occurred to me. Absolutely shocking installation. What's Korean for "frangible"?



blancolirio reckons they went off the end at 150mph(!!!), so I'm not sure how well they'd have done with the concrete pad under a localizer that wasn't installed by muppets, the wall beyond, or pretty much anything they could've clipped beyond that.

ShyFlyer wrote:The landing seemed to be accomplished quite well

Assuming that they didn't simply forget to drop the gear and flaps while dealing with the bird strike, compressor stall, whatever

ShanwickOceanic wrote:Assuming that they didn't simply forget to drop the gear and flaps...

That is a very good point. There are at least three possibilities: They forgot to drop them, they chose not to drop them, they couldn't drop them.

I'm really interested in learning the reason the crew chose to do a 180 to the runway as opposed to a full pattern. One could speculate that the crew lost both engines, felt that controllability was degrading, or a combo of the two.

...but that touchdown was so smooth. And they were so close to most if not all of them walking away...


Thankfully, there is a report that the CVR and FDR have been recovered:

While the cockpit voice recorder was found intact, the flight data recorder is said to have some damage, according to the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board in South Korea.

Due to the damage, an official from the investigation board stated that it could take at least a month to decode the flight data. If the recorder was found intact, the process typically takes a week to complete.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/damage-fl ... ane-crash/

This is a link to an image from google maps, the entire airport is surrounded by a wall of this height, and not much run off area.
You can also see part of the ILS beacon the aircraft hit in the attached google map image.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5wqrZduPqBPuwygZA

ShyFlyer wrote:...but that touchdown was so smooth. And they were so close to most if not all of them walking away...

From the videos I've seen, it seems like they floated in ground effect for a hell of a long way and touched down very late. And very smooth. Both of which will have contributed to the insane speed off the end. Can't help but wonder whether getting it down sooner and harder would've made a difference.

That localizer, though.

paul mcallister wrote:the entire airport is surrounded by a wall of this height

While I'm no expert on 737 crashworthiness, I'm reminded of the Air India incident in 2018 where they drove the thing through a brick wall on departure and ripped the belly out but still flew. Admittedly only the top of the wall, and I definitely wouldn't want to be at the pointy end for either ride, but I could imagine a trip through those breeze-blocks being quite survivable for everyone behind.

Shame some imbecile put a whacking great pile of dirt in front of it.

It seems crazy to me to have a wall like that around an airport, without some decent run out area first.
Surely a wire fence would be more suitable, and would cause much less damage to an aircraft in the event of a run off incident?

The powers that be must have decided on a wall for some reason though, I can't see any good reason for it,in fact it seems positively reckless.Muan does not appear to be a joint military base,and it's well away from the border.

...South Korea’s transport ministry said Saturday that both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the Boeing 737-800 had stopped working about four minutes before the crash.

In a statement, the ministry said it was unclear why the devices stopped recording, adding that it will work to determine the cause.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/11/asia/sou ... index.html

The last four minutes were perhaps the most critical part of the flight.

It now seems as if the data from both the CVR and FDR for the Jeju B737 are lost, or to be more accurate, they were not operative in the last 4 critical minutes of the flight.
So there are still many unknowns as to what happened.

This clip from YouTube explains the situation well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CgO01n1px0

It's a very strange accident, apparently an independent power source for the CVR and FDR was an optional extra which had to be ordered by the original purchase airline (not requested) which was Ryanair in 2009. It seems crazy to me that a backup power supply for these is not mandatory.

As for the gear up approach,nothing new has come out yet,an APU was fitted to the aircraft, but from what I have read these can take a few minutes to spool up to usable power.

I doubt the answers will be found for quite some time without the CVR/FDR info at the critical stage.There has been unconfirmed reports that the crew may have shut down one of the engines, possibly the wrong one after the birdstrike.

I'm not aware of any of the Comms with ATC being made public as yet.

paul mcallister wrote: It seems crazy to me that a backup power supply for these is not mandatory.

I believe that it is, now. Certainly I've read a few things to that effect.