Thread: SK Disaster

From what I've read it looks like the pilots were in a hurry to get it on the ground. With sufficient time to run the check lists there are multiple ways in a 737 to get the gear down. With the hydraulic redundancy in the aircraft I'm hard pressed to see how a single engine bird strike can prevent the gear from being extended, even if manually.

Lets see what comes from the investigation I suppose.

Saw an opinion piece yesterday that with all of the alarms going on for the bird strike, they possibly simply missed the gear up warnings... ? The recorders will tell all I suppose...
C

Originally Posted by BradC

From what I've read it looks like the pilots were in a hurry to get it on the ground. With sufficient time to run the check lists there are multiple ways in a 737 to get the gear down. With the hydraulic redundancy in the aircraft I'm hard pressed to see how a single engine bird strike can prevent the gear from being extended, even if manually.

Lets see what comes from the investigation I suppose.

As Juan points out, seven minutes is not enough time to run checklists for a bird strike compressor stall.

Still, as pointed out, way too soon for speculation.

Updating this event. The flight data recorders stopped recording four minutes before the crash, almost coincident with the bird strike. From information in a video by Juan covering the aircraft systems, it seems to me likely that the only event that could cause this is the loss of both engines, resulting in loss of electrical power to the recorders (another issue with a new aircraft using a decades old certification - a new design would have required independent power for them).

At the altitude and position the aircraft was in at the time of the birdstrike, the pilots did very well to actually make an on-airport landing, with an accident inevitable. Without the wall at the end of the runway, it seems likely that there would have been a lot more survivors.

And probably reflecting this is news today https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10404676 , with the man who was the head of Korean airports at the time the wall was built found dead.

Last thing I've seen is that they have found evidence of bird strike in both engines, which is as you say, John, highly troublesome for the airframe. I think it was Juan who also pointed out yhat this and other airports in SK have to double as military 'dromes. I only say that as it would appear to create conflict of interest issues, such as the high boundary fences... yes, not a factor in this incident but perhaps something that might affect decision making. This last is pure speculation on my part, but it will be interesting to see the response from Seoul, and the broader aviation community.

If they lost both engines on final, lacking power for flaps and gear perhaps, or simply wanting to conserve energy, the decision seems to have been to use excess speed to climb then remain at best glide speed for a 180 and a landing, perhaps trying to restart an engine in the few minutes available. The 180 and landing seem to have been done as well as could be expected in the circumstances, but approaching at the higher than normal speed, with gear and flaps up, and neither spoilers nor reverse thrust available, overrunning the runway was inevitable, which the wall turned into a disaster. An off airfield landing may have been better, but there was little time to decide that, and it is hard to fault the decision to use the runway - it is quite possible that the fact that there was a wall at the end may have never occurred to them. Certainly would not have been on the emergency checklist.