Why was there a wall at the end of the runway?

Aviation experts are questioning the role of the airport’s design, which placed a mound of dirt and a concrete wall across the end of the runway where Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 crashed early Sunday morning, killing all but two of the 181 people on board.

Airplane, A Boeing The 737-800 landed on the runway after an overnight flight at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea, apparently with its wings and landing gear retracted. The plane caught fire after hitting the ground and the wall where the localizer, which directs the planes to the runway, was installed.

“Certainly it made it difficult to stop the plane safely,” said Todd Curtis, founder of Air Safe Media, which tracks aviation crashes and other incidents. Curtis worked as a safety engineer at Boeing for nearly ten years.

It will take months for crash investigators to uncover the cause of the crash, South Korea’s worst air disaster and the deadliest in recent years. they will do check everything from aircraft maintenance records to pilot plan, engine, cockpit voice recorders.

Preliminary evidence suggests that a bird strike may have played a major role in the possible loss of the engine. Experts cautioned that the investigation is at a very early stage.

Some aviation experts say that if the plane had not collided with the concrete wall, the death toll could have been minimized.

Aviation safety consultant John Cox said in a video of the Jeju Air flight’s landing that “you see the plane slide, it slows down, it slows down, and everything is going pretty well until it hits the wall.” and a Boeing 737 pilot.

Cox said he suspected the cause of death for most of the passengers on the plane was “blunt force trauma from hitting the wall.”

Obstructions across airport runways are common and recommended by international and other aviation authorities.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration calls for a safety zone approximately 500 feet wide and 1,000 feet from the end of the runway to limit damage if an airplane runs off the runway. But the FAA says it has other mitigation methods under its Runway Safe Area Program because many runways in the U.S. were built before the standard was established.

“While the original RSA upgrade projects have been completed, the program continues to evolve to address security risk and plan for future enhancements,” the agency said.

For example, at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and others, engineered material containment systems, or EMAS, are installed — crushable material that slows aircraft off the runway and prevents them from rolling into more dangerous areas. In 2016, then-Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence’s plane overran the runway at LaGuardia and was eventually stopped by EMAS.

The barrier at the edge of the runway at Muan International Airport is not fragile or capable of being broken, according to video footage and expert analysis, something investigators are likely to focus on.