Jeju Air plane received bird activity warning before black box stopped

The accident happened at around 9 a.m. when the Jeju Air plane, carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, veered off the runway while landing at Muan International Airport in the Muan county, South Jeolla Province, about 288 kilometers southwest of Seoul. (File Photo: weichen_kh/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

By Yonhap, Philippine News Agency 

SEOUL – The ill-fated Jeju Airplane in last month’s deadly crash received a warning from air traffic control about bird activity just one minute before its black box recording stopped, the transport ministry said Saturday.

The ministry briefed the preliminary findings to the bereaved families following its probe into the fatal crash of the low-cost carrier plane from Bangkok that killed 179 people on board and left two survivors, in South Korea’s southwestern city of Muan on Dec. 29 last year.

The government plans to release the preliminary report by Monday, which will be sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United States, France and Thailand, the ministry said.

The investigation committee under the ministry said surveillance footage from the time of the accident at Muan International Airport confirmed that the plane attempted a go-around when it hit a flock of birds.

The plane first communicated with the air traffic control tower at 8:54 a.m. as it was approaching for landing.

The control tower cleared it for landing on Runway 01, in the opposite direction of the runway where the accident happened.

At 8:57:50 a.m., the control tower issued a warning to the aircraft about a potential bird strike. At 8:58:11 a.m., the captain and first officer talked about a flock of birds flying below the aircraft.

The recording appears to have stopped at 8:58:50 a.m., suggesting that the plane probably lost power after both engines were shut down due to the bird strikes.

Feathers and blood, apparently of a type of winter migratory ducks, were found on both engines, the ministry said.

The pilot is believed to have declared the emergency “mayday” distress call at 8:58 a.m., but this is an estimate made through synchronization with the control tower records, as no recording of it remains in the black box, the ministry said.

The plane flew for about four minutes before landing from the opposition direction without the landing gear deployed. It rammed into a concrete localizer mound and exploded in flames at 9:02 a.m.

The ministry said it will take several months to analyze flight data and cockpit voice recordings for verification.

Meanwhile, the group representing the victims’ families said it decided to end the search for victims’ remains at the accident site.

Authorities have sent the remains found from the site to the national forensics institute for identification.