Aviation experts have warned that potentially fatal mid-air bird strikes and rare 'black swan' events capable of bringing down passenger planes could become more frequent. The warning follows a tragic crash in South Korea where a Jeju Air flight from Bangkok to Muan International Airport crash-landed on its belly, skidded off the runway, and exploded, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. The incident is South Korea's deadliest air accident.
The early theory suggests that a bird strike caused engine failure, preventing the landing gear from deploying, leading to the fatal belly landing. However, ex-RAF Tornado fighter pilot Tim Davies expressed scepticism, suggesting pilot error may have contributed. 'He was leaving the runway at more than 100 knots, you're only going to experience death there,' Davies said, adding that the pilot may have landed with too much speed.
Leading air safety expert David Learmount criticised the presence of a concrete wall at the end of the runway, calling it 'verging on criminal' and stating that the collision with the wall was the 'defining moment' of the disaster. He suggested that without the wall, the plane might have stopped safely in a nearby field.
In a separate incident on the same day, a Canadian Airlines jet crash-landed at Halifax Stanfield International Airport after a suspected bird strike damaged its landing gear controls. A wing scraped along the runway before a fire broke out, but miraculously none of the 80 passengers and crew were seriously injured.
Data from the US Federal Aviation Administration shows a rise in bird strike incidents, with 19,400 recorded in 2023 compared to 17,200 in 2022. In the UK, there were 1,400 bird strikes in 2022, of which about 100 affected planes. While fatal disasters due to bird strikes are rare, history includes the 1960 crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 375 in Boston Harbour, killing 62 of 72 people, and the 2009 'Miracle on the Hudson' where Captain Chesley Sullenberger safely landed a plane after a bird strike, saving all 155 on board.
