Why was there a wall at the runway?

Aviation experts have raised questions about an “unusual” concrete wall near a runway and its role in a plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people.

Footage shows a Jeju Air plane taking off from the runway before crashing into a wall and bursting into flames at Muang International Airport.

Authorities investigating the cause of South Korea’s worst plane crash are considering the significance of the concrete wall being located about 250 meters (820 feet) from the end of the runway.

Aviation safety expert David Learmount said that if there had been no “obstruction”, the plane “would have been stopped and most – possibly all – of those on board would have survived”.

The pilot reported that the aircraft encountered a bird, then aborted the initial landing and requested clearance to land from the opposite direction.

The plane descended some distance down the 2,800-meter runway and appeared to land without using wheels or other landing gear.

Mr Learmount said the landing was “as good as a no-flaps/no-gears landing can be: wings level, nose not too high to break the tail”, and the plane suffered no significant damage as it glided down the runway. landing strip.

“The reason for the loss of so many people was not the landing per se, but the fact that the plane hit a very solid obstacle just beyond the end of the runway,” he said.

Christian Beckert, a Lufthansa pilot from Munich, called the concrete structure “unusual”, telling Reuters: “Usually at an airport with a runway at the end you don’t have a wall.”

According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, the concrete structure contains a navigation system that helps planes land – known as a localizer.

Standing 4m tall, it is covered in dirt and has been raised to keep the localizer level with the runway to ensure it works properly, Yonhap reported.

South Korea’s Ministry of Transport said other airports in the country and some abroad have equipment installed with concrete structures. However, officials are studying whether it should have been made from lighter materials that would break more easily on impact.

Chris Kingswood, a 48-year-old pilot who flew the same type of plane that crashed, told BBC News: “Obstacles within a certain range and distance from the runway have to be brittle, which means if the plane hits them that they break.

“It seems extraordinary that this is such a cruel thing. The plane, as I understand it, was flying very fast, landed well down the runway, so it went well past the end of the runway… so where do you draw the line with that?

“Airplanes are not solid structures – they are, by design, light to make them efficient in flight. They’re not really designed for high belly speeds, so any design can cause the fuselage to collapse and then be destroyed. catastrophic.

“Fuel is stored in the wings, so once a wing breaks, the potential for a fire is significant.

“So it’s not certain that if the wall hadn’t been there, the outcome would have been very different.”

Mr Kingswood said he would be “surprised if the airfield did not meet all the requirements according to industry standards”.

“I suspect that if we went around the airfields at many of the major international airports … we would find a lot of obstacles that could also be blamed for the danger,” he added.

Aviation analyst Sally Gethin questioned whether the pilot was aware of the barrier, particularly given that the plane was approaching from the opposite side of the normal approach.

She told BBC News: “We need to know if (the pilots) were aware of the hard limit at the end?

“If the control tower ordered them to cancel the use of the runway for the second time, that should be revealed during the investigation of the black boxes.

“I think there are a lot of questions.”