How the Jeju Airline Crashed: Timeline, Maps and Photos

All but two of the 181 people on board a South Korean passenger jet were killed Sunday morning in the deadliest global aviation disaster in years.

Days after the Jeju Air crash, there is little explanation as to why the plane went down. As investigators try to piece together what happened, video from the scene and initial official reports provide clues.

The pilot reported the bird strike at 8:59 a.m. and told air traffic controllers at Muan International Airport that he would abort the landing attempt and circle the air to prepare for another. Instead of going all the way, he approached the southbound runway at high speed.

The aircraft missed the normal landing zone and traveled further than normal along the runway. It then flew down the runway, leaving a trail of smoke.

The pilot was unable to control the engines and no landing gear was visible as the aircraft contacted the runway – two essential elements to slow the aircraft on landing. The aircraft also did not deploy wing flaps, another means of controlling speed.

The plane eventually ran off the runway and crashed into a concrete structure.

At the end of the video, the plane caught fire.

The plane was on a Boeing 737-800 jet, one of the most common passenger aircraft in the world. The plane had taken off from Bangkok with six crew members and 175 passengers, most of whom were South Koreans returning home after a Christmas holiday in Thailand.

Authorities found the plane’s “black box,” an electronic flight recorder containing cockpit voice and other flight data that could aid in aviation accident investigations.

According to experts, the device was partially damaged, so it may take time to recover the data, but it could play an important role in determining what happened. four fateful minutes between the pilot reporting a bird strike and the plane crashing.

Aviation analysts consider several factors that could have contributed to the crash. including concrete construction crashed into an airline before bursting into a fireball near the runway.

Similar concrete structures exist at other airports in South Korea and abroad, said Ju Jong-wan, director of aviation policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. He said it was built according to regulations, but the government plans to investigate whether regulations need to be revised after the Jeju Air crash.

A satellite image taken on Monday shows dozens of cars at the scene of the wreckage. the work of connects hundreds of body parts suffered greatly, but authorities said by Tuesday morning 170 bodies had been identified and four had been returned to their families.

The crash was the world’s deadliest since 2018, when Lion Air Flight 610 crashed off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board, according to the United Nations.