Both engines of the Jeju Air plane that crashed last month contained duck remains, according to a preliminary report on Monday, with authorities still trying to determine what caused the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil.
The six-page report released by South Korean authorities a month after the crash said both engines of the Boeing 737-800 jet contained DNA from Baikal Teals, a type of migratory duck that flies to South Korea for winter in huge flocks.
But the report provided no initial conclusions about what may have caused the plane to land without its landing gear deployed, and why flight data recorders stopped recording in the final four minutes of the flight.
The Jeju Air flight from Bangkok on Dec. 29 overshot Muan Airport's runway as it made an emergency belly landing and crashed into an embankment containing navigation equipment, called localisers, killing all but two of the 181 people and crew members on board.
"After the crash into the embankment, fire and a partial explosion occurred. Both engines were buried in the embankment's soil mound, and the fore fuselage scattered up to 30-200 meters from the embankment," the report said, providing some new pictures of the accident site.
The localiser aids navigation of an aircraft making an approach to the runway, and the structure built of reinforced concrete and earth at Muan airport supporting the system's antennae likely contributed to the high death toll, experts have said.
The investigation will tear down the engines, examine components in depth, analyze in-flight and air traffic control data, and investigate the embankment, localisers and evidence of bird strike, the report said about its next steps.
"These all-out investigation activities aim to determine the accurate cause of the accident," it said.
The report highlighted much of the initial findings by the South Korean investigators that were shared with victims' families on Saturday, including the pilots' awareness of a flock of birds on the plane's final approach.
The exact time the bird strike was reported by the pilots remains unconfirmed, the accident report said, but the aircraft "made an emergency declaration (Mayday x 3) for a bird strike during a go-around."
The report does not say what may have led to the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) to stop recording simultaneously just before the pilots declared the emergency.
The aircraft was at an altitude of 152 meters flying at 161 knots (298 km/h) about 1.1 nautical miles (2 km) from the runway at the moment the flight recorders stopped recording, it said.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a U.N. agency, requires accident investigators to produce a preliminary report within 30 days of the accident and encourages a final report to be made public within 12 months.
South Korea's Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board has shared its report with ICAO, Thailand, and the United States and France, which are the home states for the plane and engine manufacturers, an official said on Monday.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
13 Comments
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theFu
Jet engines can handle a few birds being ingested. Hitting an entire flock - that's a different story. That crash on the Hudson River in NY was caused when both engines were destroyed after flying through an entire flock of birds. BTW, that was an A320.
The standard requirement for engine testing is 4 lbs of bird shouldn't cause catastrophic failure to the plane. The engine could have anywhere from ZERO damage to needing to be shutdown requiring the other engine to keep the plane flying.
According to the FAA, about 26 bird strikes happen daily, so it isn't THAT uncommon. Generally, the bird is ingested and the plane keeps going with zero damage.. In bad situations, the bird(s) cause an engine to fail, explode and the pilots will request priority landing at the closest airport on the other, working, engine. It is extremely uncommon for a bird to bring down a commercial airliner. The cowlings around the engine are engineered to hold any explosion debris, preventing damage outside or to the aircraft fuselage.
When they do the bird strike tests, there's always a joke to be certain to defrost the bird(s) first ... er ... so I've heard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLy2QN4NAvo - chicken thrown into jet engine. I'm not certain I believe some of the statements in this video - like saying RR has been manufacturing jet engines for over 100 yrs when RR began "manufacturing" jet engines in 1944, so ... about 70 yrs ago.
They also test airplane windshields for bird strikes. There's a "bird cannon" for those tests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp7uLTNiGrQ The bird is going so fast that our eyes don't see it hit.
JJE
Migratory ducks are surely capable of that in this Boeing mass casualty event.
K3PO
We'll have to wait to see why the undercarriage wasn't deployed.
What really increased the deadliness was the explosion after the plane slammed into a concrete barrier at the end of the runway.
David Brent
They forgot to lower the landing gear. When they realized their error, they decided to try to take off again. This is why they were still going 160km/h when they hit the concrete wall.
David Brent
They didn't; it's just that the South Korean authorities want to keep everything a secret.
Cephus
"Duck DNA in both engines of Jeju Air plane that crashed, report says."
What a bad luck! With both engines failing.
virusrex
As the article mentions Baikal Teals form huge flocks, so it is reasonable to expect that if the airplane flew into one both engines could be involved.
https://www.grida.no/resources/4368
Cephus
"As the article mentions Baikal Teals form huge flocks, so it is reasonable to expect that if the airplane flew into one both engines could be involved."
I get your point, but don't forget this was not the only plane using that airport.
Mr Kipling
This is terrible news.
Mr Kipling
Original comment has been moderated. Terrible for the people that died but I really don't care about a few ducks.
Five Families
From Dec. 29, 2024 05:18 pm JSTPosted in: Plane bursts into flames after veering off runway at airport in S Korea, killing 179 See in context
My Korean co-worker said it was a bird strike causing utter failure. Again tragic. Very sad and heartbreaking.
-7 ( +1 / -8 )
Enough said. A duck is a bird. And they fly in flocks. 179 gone. May they find peace.
tora
Noticd how when there is anything slightly suspicious in cases like this they always find the black box is somehow missing exactly the data they mostly need. Happens again and again. And they call US conspiracy theorists.
Sven Asai
And those ingested ducks also switched off two black boxes' recording, right? Come on, lie to someone else.
USNinJapan2
Both engines did not fail. It is clear from post crash photos that while the starboard engine #1 fan blades were badly damaged by the bird strike with damage also where the #1 generator is located, the port engine #2's fan blades were all intact and undamaged despite also ingesting birds. This means #1 probably almost suffered a failure from the damage, #2 probably only suffered a compressor stall, which isn't catastrophic and is completely recoverable. The plane also climbed from its altitude at the time of the bird strikes while attempting their go around so they clearly had good thrust in at least one of their engines, most likely engine #2. Since it's visible in the videos of the landing on the runway that engine #1 was still running while engine #1 was not, the most likely scenarios is the plane lost all engine generated power, and as a result the FDR and CVR, when the pilots erroneously shutdown the one good engine they had, #2, during the go-around when they meant to shut down the badly damaged #1, and didn't have time to start the APU. It's also come to light that Jeju Air pilots are trained to continue and complete the approach and land immediately if they experience a bird strike in the landing sequence and aircraft configuration this plane was in at the time of the bird strikes, so it's a mystery why the pilot in command chose to abort the approach for a go-around and why the co-pilot didn't challenge his decision.