South Korean authorities announced today that they are planning “special inspections” of all Boeing 737-800s in use in the country, after 179 people died in the crash of a passenger plane of this type shortly after its emergency landing on Sunday in the city of Muan.

A total of “101 Boeing 737-800 aircraft are currently in use in South Korea” and “we are considering options to conduct special inspections” regarding their safety, Joo Jong-wan, an official in charge of the aviation sector at the ministry, told reporters. Transportation in the Asian country.

Many questions are being raised by the new plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 of the 181 people on board.

Experts who spoke to Reuters disputed initial estimates that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft struck by a flock of birdspointing out that what causes intense concern is the fact that its wheels did not open.

The aircraft skidded down the runway with no visible landing gear and then hit a wall, according to video broadcast on local media.

“Why didn’t the firefighters put foam on the runway? Why weren’t they present when the plane went down? And why did the aircraft fall so far down the runway? And why was there a brick wall at the end of the corridor?said Airline News editor Jeffrey Thomas.

Analysts stressed, however, that more evidence was needed before South Korean authorities could definitively identify what could have caused the crash, including speculation by local officials that a bird strike could have occurred before landing.

The comments came after Lee Jeong-hyun, chief of the Muan Fire Department, told the media that the cause of the shocking accident was “estimated to be a bird strike or bad weather.” But footage of the crash showed clear skies at the time.

David Soucie, a former FAA safety inspector, said that “speculation is an investigator’s worst enemy.”

A Jeju Air spokesman declined to comment on the cause of the accident during press conferences, saying an investigation was underway.

Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was designed and built.

The flight data recorder was found at 11:30 am. (02:30 GMT), about two and a half hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder was found at 2:24 p.m., according to South Korea’s transport ministry.

“The voice recorder will probably provide the most interesting analysis of what happened in this tragic accident.”

Experts warn that plane accidents are usually caused by a cocktail of factors and it can take months to piece together the sequence of events inside and outside the plane.

The chronicle of the tragedy

The control tower had instructed the pilot to change course to land in the opposite direction to avoid a possible bird strike. The pilot followed the instructions.

About a minute later, the pilot made a call to the tower. The attempted landing occurred about two minutes after the Mayday call, according to the ministry.

The black box flight data recorder has been recovered by the accident investigation committee, while the voice recorder has yet to be recovered, ministry officials said.

The first estimates

Experts said it seemed unlikely that a bird strike would have caused the landing gear to malfunction.A bird strike is not unusual. They happen much more often, but usually do not cause the loss of a plane by themselvesThomas said.

Australian airline security expert Geoffrey Dell said: “I have never seen a bird strike obstruct the landing gear».

Australian aviation consultant Trevor Jensen said fire and emergency services should normally have been ready to land, with the “belly} of the plane

A bird strike could have affected the CFM International engines if it had inhaled birds. But according to experts the engines would not stop immediately and the pilots would have little time to deal with the situation, Dell said.

According to them in similar cases the aircraft descend with minimal fuel, firefighters pour foam on the runway, and the landing is made at the far end of the runway

After the control tower issued the bird strike warning and the pilots declared a mayday, they attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said.

“During the landing process it hit a navigational safety facility called a localizer and collided with the wall,” the official said.

The pilot had been working in that capacity since 2019 and had logged 6,823 flight hours, the ministry said. The first officer had served in that rank since 2023 and had logged about 1,650 flight hours.