Preliminary report published on Monday, January 27, on the Jeju Airplane Crash has revealed duck DNA remains in both plane engines – the deadliest air disaster seen on South Korean soil.
The six-page report is being released by the South Korean authorities, a month after the disastrous plane crash. It is now found that both engines of the Boeing 737-800 jet contained DNA from Baikal Teals, a type of migratory duck that flies to South Korea for winter in huge flocks.
The report however, lacked initial conclusions about what may have caused the plane to land without its landing gear deployed, and why flight data recorders stopped recording in the final four minutes of the flight.
The Jeju Air flight from Bangkok on December 29 overshot Muan Airport’s runway as it made an emergency belly landing and crashed into an embankment containing navigation equipment, called localisers, killing everyone but two of the 181 people and crew members on board.
The localiser aids navigation of an aircraft making an approach to the runway, and the structure built of reinforced concrete and earth at Muan airport supporting the system’s antennae likely contributed to the high death toll, experts say.
The investigation will closely examine the engines, check its components in depth, analyse in-flight and air traffic control data, and investigate the embankment, localisers and evidence of bird strike, the report said about its next steps.
Questions Remain on the Jeju Aircraft
The preliminary report does not reveal what possibly led to the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) to stop recording simultaneously just before the pilots declared the emergency.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a U.N. agency, mandates accident investigators to produce a preliminary report within 30 days of the accident and encourages a final report to be announced to the public within 12 months.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board has shared its report with ICAO, Thailand, and the United States and France, which are the home states for the plane and engine manufacturers, an official said on Monday.
