Bird Strike Warning Issued Shortly Before Jeju Air Crash

SEAToday.com, Seoul - The airport control tower had issued a bird strike warning just six minutes before a Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people crashed in Muan county, southwest South Korea.

Authorities earlier said the accident occurred at around 9:07 a.m. local time, when the Jeju Air plane went off the runway during landing and collided with a fence wall at Muan International Airport, in Muan county, South Jeolla Province, 288 kilometers southwest of Seoul.

According to a press conference on Sunday by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which oversees aviation safety, the control tower gave the warning at 8:57 a.m. The pilot of the plane immediately announced a mayday.

The pilot of the plane immediately declared a mayday or emergency at 8:58 a.m. and attempted to land at 9:00 a.m., but crashed three minutes later at 9:03 a.m. while landing without the landing gear ejected, the ministry said.

“While attempting to land on runway No.1, the control tower gave a bird strike warning and the pilot announced a mayday shortly after,” the ministry said.

Authorities said the control tower gave permission to land in the opposite direction on the runway, after which the pilot attempted to land until it eventually went off the runway and hit a wall.

The ministry rejected the notion that the relatively short runway at the Muan airport had contributed to the accident.

The runway there is 2,800 meters long, but with construction work underway, it is currently about 2,500m in actual length.

"The Boeing 737-800 aircraft that crashed today can land on runways that are 1,500m to 1,600m long," a ministry official said. "It's difficult to attribute the accident to the length of the runway because other planes have been landing with no problems."