Boeing 737-800 is among world’s most common aircraft

Accident investigators are attempting to determine what precipitated a Jeju Air flight to stomach land without its landing gear down at Muan Worldwide Airport in southwestern South Korea, killing all however two of the 181 individuals on board because it burst into flames within the nation’s worst air catastrophe in many years.

South Korea’s appearing president, Choi Sang-mok, ordered an emergency inspection of the nation’s Boeing 737-800s, the kind of aircraft used on the deadly Jeju Air Flight 7C2216.

The Boeing 737-800 is without doubt one of the world’s mostly used airplanes, and it has a robust security document. It predates the Boeing 737 Max, the kind that was concerned in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed all 346 individuals on board these flights. The 737 Max was grounded for almost two years, and a flight-control system, which was later tweaked, was implicated in both of those crashes.

There are practically 4,400 of the older Boeing 737-800s operated around the globe, based on aviation-data agency Cirium. Meaning the mannequin makes up about 17% of the world’s in-service industrial passenger jet fleet.

The typical age of the world’s 737-800 fleet is 13 years previous, based on Cirium, and the final of the sequence of planes had been delivered about 5 years in the past.

Jeju Air took supply of the aircraft which was concerned on this weekend’s crash in 2017. It was beforehand operated by European low cost provider Ryanair, based on Flightradar24. The aircraft concerned within the crash was about 15 years previous.

Aerospace consultants say it is unlikely that investigators will discover a design downside with the long-flying plane.

“The concept they will discover a design flaw at this level is borderline inconceivable,” stated Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consulting agency.

A full investigation may take longer than a 12 months, and the bizarre incident has raised extra questions than solutions, resembling why the touchdown gear wasn’t deployed. Even with a hydraulic malfunction, Boeing 737-800 pilots can drop the touchdown gear manually.

One concept includes a doable chook strike that disabled no less than one if not each engines.

“If that occurs on the altitude they had been at, they might not have had time to do emergency checklists,” stated Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air security investigator with the U.S. Nationwide Transportation Security Board and the Federal Aviation Administration. He additionally stated if the aircraft hadn’t run right into a mount of grime and onerous wall on the finish of the runway, the accident may have been extra survivable. That space housed a localizer that helps information plane.

The NTSB is main the U.S. workforce of investigators that additionally contains Boeing and the FAA, for the reason that plane was manufactured and licensed in the US.

Beneath worldwide protocols, the nation through which the accident passed off will lead the general investigation.

Boeing shares fell greater than 4% early Monday after native officers called for inspections on 737-800s operated by South Korean airways, however pared earlier losses to finish the day down 2.3%.