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The wall is a red herring. The plane landed halfway down the runway at high speed. Something bad is going to happen if you do that at any runway on earth. In SF

by reso 2y ago

The wall is a red herring. The plane landed halfway down the runway at high speed. Something bad is going to happen if you do that at any runway on earth. In SFO you'll end up in the bay or hit the terminal depending on the orientation. In Toronto you'll crash into a highway. Stop looking at the wall and look at the minutes before the crash.

MoreMoore 2y ago
People keep saying that, but I don't see how it's excusable for there to be a massive concrete block against which planes disintegrate at the end of any runway. Maybe everybody would've died some other way, maybe only 10 people would have survived, who knows. But we won't know because somebody put a massive concrete block in the way. We aren't talking about any of your examples in this crash. And it isn't relevant for many other places either. If you have an open field behind a runway and you put a concrete block directly at the end of it, you can't defend your decision with "well, in this other city it doesn't matter because you'll hit the terminal". It's some weird form of whataboutism that I simply don't understand. It's inexcusable and it's tiring seeing people defend it as if it's okay.
- Affric 2y ago
  Exactly. Causality isn’t an equivalence relation with blame. A moral aspect has to be established.
- kijin 2y ago
  Yes, especially because the concrete block is against regulations. A terminal beside the runway at roughly the same distance is not against regulations. Almost every rule in aviation is written in blood, so if there's a rule about something, there's probably a damn good reason why.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  Apparently it is a structure that holds antennas to keep an aircraft centered on the runway. The antennas have to be there, but experts are saying that the structure supporting the antennas is way over engineered and even internal airport documents had raised concerns about it: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-korean-officials-were-worried-about-barrier-before-it-was-struck-by-jeju-air-flight https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-korean-officials-wer...
chuckwfinley 2y ago
This exactly. The biggest problem was that it came down with no gear or flaps (as far as I'm aware at least).
SkyPuncher 2y ago
Most of the busiest airports in the world have some sort of dangerous obstacle roughly the same distance from many of their runways. Ravines, buildings, hills, water, trains/trams, etc, etc.
- markdown 2y ago
  But not this one. Not this one. Without the wall, it's likely many more would be alive.
  - munchler 2y ago
    Yes, this one. Just like the others, this airport had a dangerous obstacle at a considerable distance from the runway. It's not a design goal of these runways to make such a landing survivable.
    - knifie_spoonie 2y ago
      Except this dangerous obstacle did not need to be there. It could and should have been mounted on frangible posts, not on solid concrete.
    - Xixi 2y ago
      Indeed, this one. But was it known to the pilots? The other dangerous obstacles you mention tend to be known and visible, not hidden and unexpected (against best practices). The pilots didn't have to land there, they could have attempted a US Airways Flight 1549 rather than aiming at a piece of reinforced concrete.
loeg 2y ago
No one is discouraging investigation of the other factors or thinks they aren't significant.
- khuey 2y ago
  Except they are and they do. The quoted "air safety expert" in the BBC article essentially says the landing was "as good as can be" and that most or all of the people onboard would have survived if the localizer berm wasn't present.
  - loeg 2y ago
    The full quote you're referencing but truncating is "as good as a flapless/gearless touchdown could be." This is, uh, light praise? "It's a pretty great shit sandwich." None of these people are calling for not investigating the other factors.
  - Xixi 2y ago
    Are you this "air safety expert" is part of the investigation team? Because otherwise, I don't think the actual investigators care about their opinion, or yours, or that of any media (mainstream or not)...
est 2y ago
You are missing the point. Runways are supposed to provide some room for errors. It's part of the investigation. You can't simply blame a human. Everything needs to be designed just in case
teleforce 2y ago
To continue your idiom, it's not a red herring, it's the elephant in the room. Seriously, I think the incident it's a hard lesson for airport designer and ICAO. For better civil aviation safety, the next airport runway should have ample room for safer aircraft landing without landing gears. Previously there's no real-time aircraft tracking requirement for passenger aircraft only for cargo, but after MH370 it's mandatory now and even ICAO acknowledged this very reason for the new regulations introduction.
- SR2Z 2y ago
  Very, very few airport runways are long enough for a plane without brakes to land halfway and be fine. It's simply not possible to build airports in useful places and guarantee three-mile runways.
  - teleforce 2y ago
    Apparently runaway excursions is the third cause of major accidents of large commercial transport aircraft [1]. Muan airport runway distance is one the shortest in Korea, less than 3 km and ironically during the incident reportedly there is an ongoing construction to increase the length of the runaway to more than 3 km, but effectively further shorten the runaway to 2.5 km (similar to Yangyang Airport). Strangely South Korea has many shorter runway international airports. Most of the modern international airport have more than 4 km runway, and new major airports for example Qatar Doha, US Denver and SA Upington has runaway length close to 5 km. [1] Operational Landing Distances: A new standard for in-flight landing distance assessment. [2] Muan Airport runway previously shortened, impact under scrutiny: https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389538 https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389538
    - FabHK 2y ago
      > new major airports for example Qatar Doha, US Denver and SA Upington has runaway length close to 5 km. These are by no means average "new major airports". Denver airport (from 1989) is the west's largest airport (by land area), and at 5000 ft+ elevation (necessitating longer runways). Upington in the far North-West of South Africa was built in 1968 to accommodate a full Boeing 747 flying to Europe non-stop during the apartheid regime when sanctions meant that overflight or stops in the rest of Africa were not feasible. It has one of the longest runways in the world due to the use case and hot & high environment at 2800 ft (and was intended as an emergency runway for Space Shuttles, if memory serves correctly). It is hardly used anymore with less than 20 aircraft movements a day. There is no recent trend for longer runways. The issue is extremely well known and well understood, by and large.
tooltalk 2y ago
Occam's razor: the wall is most probably the cause of the unnecessary explosion that killed 179 people. The airport built ILS, or localizer, on unnecessarily over-engineered concrete structure where there shouldn't have been any obstruction. The ILS are supposed to be built on level surface or "frangile" structure so they can be easily destroyed when there is an overrun. There are reportedly at least 4 other airports with such obstructions in South Korea -- at Yeosu, it's 4 meters high (also concrete foundation)[1]. <strikethrough>There was a similar accident in Hiroshima, Japan several years ago: Airbus A320-200 skidded past the end of the runway at similar speed and struck down ILS. It eventually stopped -- damaged the airplane but no fatality.</strikethrough> 1. Localizer at Yeosu Airport, similar to Muan's, raises safety concerns, 2025.01.02 (23:58), KBS News.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
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  - deleted 2y ago
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  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    The pilots on 9/11 were intentionally directing their aircraft toward specific structures to maximise destruction, casualties, and terrorist impact. That was their express intent and mission for which they had specifically trained. In all likelihood the pilot of Jeju 2216 was not specifically directing his aircraft to the nonfrangible ILS Muan Murder Wall. There is no way to charitably argue otherwise.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - sitkack 2y ago
    You are disingenuously misrepresenting their argument. Please don't.
- 2y ago
markdown 2y ago
What a lame comment. This isn't how aviation safety is managed. You expect planes to land halfway down the runway at high speed and out of control. It's an eventual certainty. > In SFO you'll end up in the bay or hit the terminal depending on the orientation. In Toronto you'll crash into a highway. Ending up in a bay or crashing into a highway would likely have resulted in far less loss of life.
- munchler 2y ago
  And hitting the terminal would likely have resulted in far more loss of life. Are airport designers supposed to consider this as "an eventual certainty"?
  - kijin 2y ago
    Terminals are generally located to the side of a runway at some distance, where a plane aligned with the runway is unlikely to hit them no matter how fast it's going. Not sure if there's a regulation that requires this kind of arrangement, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are stricter rules about structures that cross a plane's usual trajectory.
  - scripturial 2y ago
    Yes, but there is no terminal at the end of this runway, so it’s irrelevant. The question is, wouldn’t it be safer to design airports to avoid having large concrete structures at the end of a runway in case there is a landing problem.
- SR2Z 2y ago
  Crashing into a highway would have resulted in similar loss of life. Airplanes are only barely safe when they land without gear, and almost any obstruction is going to be more solid than a machine that's built to be as lightweight as possible. There is no way to make a runway safe if a plane lands halfway down it, even if the brakes and landing gear are actually working. It's just not possible; runways are limited by geography and we tend to run aircraft as heavy as possible.
- WalterBright 2y ago
dredmorbius 2y ago
At the moment before encountering the Muan Murder Wall, there were 181 souls alive, healthy, and uninjured aboard Jeju Air Flight 2216. At the moment after encountering the Muan Murder Wall, there were 2 souls alive, one severely injured, and 179 corpses, most mutilated beyond all recognition. Multiple things had clearly gone wrong with the flight, and we're going to have to wait for results of investigations to determine what crew and/or ATC actions and decisions contributed. But the principle lethal mechanism was impact with the immovable object of the Muan Murder Wall, and the ensuing instantaneous deceleration, disintegration, and conflagration of the aircraft and the souls aboard. Even with multiple contributing factors, had the Muan Murder Wall not existed at that location, the aircraft would have overrun the runway and quite possibly airport perimeter, but would have slowed far more gradually and likely encountered structures less substantial than the Muan Murder Wall. Wikipedia has a category page listing 55 runway overruns: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_involving_runway_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_an...> Sampling from that we find that such accidents often result in no or few fatalities, particularly on landing. E.g.: - Sriwijaya Air Flight 062 (2008): 130 souls, 124 passengers, 6 crew, 1 fatality, 23 injuries, 130 survivors. The aircraft struck a house, 3 of the injured were occupants. The sole fatality occurred some time after the incident. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriwijaya_Air_Flight_062 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriwijaya_Air_Flight_062> - China Eastern Airlines Flight 5398 (1993): 80 souls, 71 passengers, 9 crew, 2 fatalities, 10 injuries, 78 survivors. The aircraft experienced a tailstrike during a go-around attempt in heavy rain / high winds, broke in three, and came to rest in a pond. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_5398 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_...> - Philippine Airlines Flight 137 (1998): 130 souls, 124 passengers, 6 crew, 0 fatalities, 44 injuries, 130 survivors. Ground casualties: 3 dead, 25 injured, as aircraft ploughed through a residential area. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_137 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_137> - American Airlines Flight 331 (2009): 154 souls, 148 passengers, 6 crew, 0 fatalities, 85 injuries, 154 survivors. Aircraft landed > 4,000 feet from the threshold with a tailwind in inclement weather. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_331 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_331> - TAM Airlines Flight 3054 (2007): 187 occupants, 181 passengers, 6 crew, 187 fatalities, 0 survivors. The exception in my (random) sample, this aircraft had a nonfunctional thrust reverser on the right engine. Lack of grooving on runway, heavy rain, hydroplaning, asymmetric thrust, and a large warehouse directly beyond the runway perimeter all contributed to the fatalities. I've omitted one link I'd selected, Air France Flight 007 (1962) as that incident occurred on takeoff, not landing, where fuel load and flight profile greatly alter conditions and likely outcome, and isn't directly comparable. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_007>. If anyone cares to examine the 50 other listings on the Wikipedia category page, I suspect a similar patter of largely survivable overrun incidents prevails. The conspicuous lack of Muan Murder Walls seems significant.
timewizard 2y ago
> The wall is a red herring. This is not how safety works. > Something bad is going to happen if you do that at any runway on earth. Then the question is can we do any sort of engineering to reduce the number of fatalities that might occur when this _inevitably_ happens. > Stop looking at the wall and look at the minutes before the crash. The plane hit the wall and exploded. The wall seems pretty important here. I mean, yes, there are also other problems to solve, but solving them does not let you off the hook here.
- FabHK 2y ago
  You could mandate that airports incorporate runways shaped as disks with 10 km diameter and another 5 km of empty space around them. Accidents would still happen.
  - scripturial 2y ago
    Your suggestion is absurd and impractical. You’re not contributing anything useful. Of course accidents happen. Knowing accidents happen, People are asking why a large solid concrete structure is at the end of the runway. Especially given that it was known to be a bad idea.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    Many runways have an ILS antenna installation inside the protected area. They just follow code guidelines that the mounts can only be so high above grade and must be frangible. This installation is different because of local conditions. They used a common local solution in an inappropriate area. There are dozens of ways to solve this problem. From the short term of better structure engineering to the long term of better ILS antenna installations that don't require such large structures in such commonly dangerous positions in the first place. We could even get into better run off engineering to handle the somewhat unusual case of a fully gear up landing. It's just insane to me to say "it's a red herring" as if this were a mystery novel and not an emergent failure of several safety mechanisms.
Aloisius 2y ago
> In SFO you'll end up in the bay or hit the terminal depending on the orientation. The bay is survivable and I don't think you can hit the terminal. You could possibly hit the freeway though. That said, two of the runways at SFO are 1.5 km longer than the one in Korea. > In Toronto you'll crash into a highway. That runway is 1.5 kilometers longer than the one in Korea and it's another kilometer to the highway that sits uphill.
- reso 2y ago
  In Toronto, the 427 is ~100m from the edge of 24R.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    Landings/takeoffs from 23/24R/24L are in the westerly direction (away from 427) due to prevailing winds.
    - guiriduro 2y ago
      But in an emergency is it impossible for aircraft to land in the opposite direction? That's what happened at Muan; the concrete structure was only present if the plane landed against the normal approach.
      - Aloisius 2y ago
        Impossible? No, but the fact that planes generally don't approach from that direction and there are other, longer runways to land means substantially reduce the risk of an already extremely rare event.
Xixi 2y ago
You are making an assumption here, that I think is unreasonable: that the pilots (who have probably landed at this airport hundreds of times, it's not like they don't know the place) were expecting a large piece of reinforced concrete to be in the path of the plane. I'm speculating, of course, but pilots made the decision to land there (albeit in a very short amount of time). They probably made the reasonable assumption that they could "safely" (as safe as it can be, of course) overshoot the runway in that direction. They were certainly not expecting to hit a concrete structure that would pulverize their plane. Having large concrete structures near airports is not unreasonable, hiding them absolutely is. If instead of a hidden piece of concrete it had been a terminal like in SFO, a sea wall, or another known hazardous structure, the pilots could very well have decided to land somewhere else. Including in the very large body of water next to (or beyond) the runway. You don't know, I don't know, and we might never know depending on what is uncovered by the investigation.
- reso 2y ago
  You're making an assumption that the outcome would have been different if that wall wasn't there. You're wrong. 50m past that wall is another wall, 5m after that is a highway.
  - chii 2y ago
    the 2nd wall is a brick wall, rather than reinforced concrete (which is what seems to be the first wall). I dont think the plane would get pulverized hitting a brick wall, and the distance will also slow the speed. And the highway is not above the plane's travel axis, so the highway is a non sequitur. Not to mention even more distance to slow down.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - Xixi 2y ago
    Indeed I'm making tons of assumptions, but you have not yet convinced me that they are wrong. A brick wall is no reinforced concrete, and how is a road at plane level fundamentally different from the runway the plane was "gliding" on?
sinuhe69 2y ago
I don’t think so. Would the localizer have been made of less rigid structure and not a steel-reinforced concrete, the fatality could be much lower. Also problematic is the brick wall at the end. They could make it as fence only and not a brick wall. That will help, too. Of course, one need to investigate the whole situation, for example why did the pilot choose to land immediately, why no flaps and spoilers were released and why no attempt has been made to manually release the landing gears (using gravity if needed) are things of intense scrutiny now.
Animats 2y ago
Right. Pilot boards agree on this. It's clear that the plane landed halfway down the runway at high speed, no gear, flaps, slats, or speed brakes. A runway overrun was inevitable from that point. Nobody knows yet why they landed in that configuration. Failed go-around? Engine out landing? Cut wrong engine after a bird strike? Loss of hydraulics? Too rushed for landing checklist in an emergency? All of those are possible. More than one may have happened. Wait for the flight data recorder data. One article says the runway was equipped with EMAS, an Engineered Materials Arresting System.[1] This sits in the area just past the end of the runway, the part marked with painted chevrons. It's a thin layer of concrete over blocks of a material which includes foamed plastic holding pumice-like rocks. If a plane overruns the runway, the wheels break through the thin concrete layer and start pushing through the plastic/rock mixture, grinding the rocks into powder to absorb the energy. This usually damages the landing gear, but the rest of the plane survives. 22 planes saved so far.[2][3] It didn't help here. The plane seems to have skidded over the EMAS area on its belly, instead of breaking through and getting the braking effect. The surface of the EMAS area has to be tough enough to survive jet blast on takeoffs, so it can't just be a sand pit. [1] https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 [2] https://ops.group/blog/swerving-to-avoid-why-arent-we-using-emas/ https://ops.group/blog/swerving-to-avoid-why-arent-we-using-... [3] https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/engineered-material-arresting-system-emas-0 https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/engineered-material-arresting-s...
- oefrha 2y ago
  > One article says the runway was equipped with EMAS, an Engineered Materials Arresting System. > https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 Nowhere in that article says Muan Airpot has EMAS, it says a local official confirmed that Songshan Airport in Taipei has EMAS, following local concerns that Songshan Airport has an even shorter runway (2600m vs 2800m in Muan). A thread full of armchair experts is already bad enough, please don't make it worse with seemingly well-supported misinformation.
  - Animats 2y ago
    Oh, you're right. Different airport. Sorry. Muan does have the chevron markings on the overrun area, but that does not always indicate EMAS.
mannykannot 2y ago
This crash raises two separate questions: why did the airplane land the way it did, and did it make any sense to have a massive concrete barrier just off the end of the runway. The answer to either one does not render the other irrelevant. As it happens, we already know the answer to one of them.
YuukiRey 2y ago
If you can get the same features with less risk it seems like a worthwhile thing to consider. Meaning if we can build the same antenna array but with less risk to airplanes and all at an acceptable economical cost, it feels like something we should do. Regardless of whether or not a runway overrun at other airports and in other situations poses more or less risk.
alkonaut 2y ago
If it’s possible in any way to keep the next few km after a runway clear, then it should be clear. Ocean is great. Empty fields are great. If you are lucky enough to have empty fields but put a concrete wall there, then that’s almost malicious. The cause of any fatality in aviation is never a single thing. It’s invariably a chain of events where removing any one thing in the chain would prevent the disaster.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  Agreed. I work on a different type of vehicle with safety-critical systems for a living, and I'm naturally also very interested in the interactions between the pilots and the machine (and among themselves) and the spiral of events in the cockpit. But that doesn't mean debating whether there's a better way to engineer typhoon-resilient localizer antenna arrays isn't also a good use of time. Safety makes it imperative to discuss all of these matters exhaustively. Re ocean, no, that isn't so great - sea rescue is a lot more difficult to perform than on land.
  - alkonaut 2y ago
    Sure but if you have 3km of open water following the runway then don’t block it with a concrete wall (even if that wall prevents storm flooding 2 days every 5 years). Sea rescue is a lot easier than rescuing people who drove into a concrete wall.
- blitzar 2y ago
  > If you are lucky enough to have empty fields but put a concrete wall there ... I am fairly sure this will be one of the findings of the investigation. I hazard a guess that every sane operator of an airport in the world is walking from the end of their runway to the airfield perimeter and taking a look anyway.
- m463 2y ago
  The wall might critical to keeping things off the runway, like animals and people.
  - 2y ago
PicassoCTs 2y ago
Nowhere else on earth is that structure a concrete wall. Its always some rather flimsy metal structure- designed to crumble.
mda 2y ago
Terrible take, wall is not the red herring, wall is the reason of deaths of almost all souls in the plane. "Something bad is going to happen" usually has very different outcome than hitting a concrete wall. Aviation accident history definitely disagrees with you.
charlieyu1 2y ago
Disagree from Hong Kong. You would probably land on sea but probably end up with single digit causalities

by reso 2y ago

MoreMoore 2y ago

People keep saying that, but I don't see how it's excusable for there to be a massive concrete block against which planes disintegrate at the end of any runway. Maybe everybody would've died some other way, maybe only 10 people would have survived, who knows. But we won't know because somebody put a massive concrete block in the way. We aren't talking about any of your examples in this crash. And it isn't relevant for many other places either. If you have an open field behind a runway and you put a concrete block directly at the end of it, you can't defend your decision with "well, in this other city it doesn't matter because you'll hit the terminal". It's some weird form of whataboutism that I simply don't understand. It's inexcusable and it's tiring seeing people defend it as if it's okay.

Affric 2y ago
Exactly. Causality isn’t an equivalence relation with blame. A moral aspect has to be established.
kijin 2y ago
Yes, especially because the concrete block is against regulations. A terminal beside the runway at roughly the same distance is not against regulations. Almost every rule in aviation is written in blood, so if there's a rule about something, there's probably a damn good reason why.
bonestamp2 2y ago
Apparently it is a structure that holds antennas to keep an aircraft centered on the runway. The antennas have to be there, but experts are saying that the structure supporting the antennas is way over engineered and even internal airport documents had raised concerns about it: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-korean-officials-were-worried-about-barrier-before-it-was-struck-by-jeju-air-flight https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-korean-officials-wer...

chuckwfinley 2y ago

This exactly. The biggest problem was that it came down with no gear or flaps (as far as I'm aware at least).

SkyPuncher 2y ago

Most of the busiest airports in the world have some sort of dangerous obstacle roughly the same distance from many of their runways. Ravines, buildings, hills, water, trains/trams, etc, etc.

markdown 2y ago
But not this one. Not this one. Without the wall, it's likely many more would be alive.
- munchler 2y ago
  Yes, this one. Just like the others, this airport had a dangerous obstacle at a considerable distance from the runway. It's not a design goal of these runways to make such a landing survivable.
  - knifie_spoonie 2y ago
    Except this dangerous obstacle did not need to be there. It could and should have been mounted on frangible posts, not on solid concrete.
  - Xixi 2y ago
    Indeed, this one. But was it known to the pilots? The other dangerous obstacles you mention tend to be known and visible, not hidden and unexpected (against best practices). The pilots didn't have to land there, they could have attempted a US Airways Flight 1549 rather than aiming at a piece of reinforced concrete.

loeg 2y ago

No one is discouraging investigation of the other factors or thinks they aren't significant.

khuey 2y ago
Except they are and they do. The quoted "air safety expert" in the BBC article essentially says the landing was "as good as can be" and that most or all of the people onboard would have survived if the localizer berm wasn't present.
- loeg 2y ago
  The full quote you're referencing but truncating is "as good as a flapless/gearless touchdown could be." This is, uh, light praise? "It's a pretty great shit sandwich." None of these people are calling for not investigating the other factors.
- Xixi 2y ago
  Are you this "air safety expert" is part of the investigation team? Because otherwise, I don't think the actual investigators care about their opinion, or yours, or that of any media (mainstream or not)...

est 2y ago

You are missing the point. Runways are supposed to provide some room for errors. It's part of the investigation. You can't simply blame a human. Everything needs to be designed just in case

teleforce 2y ago

To continue your idiom, it's not a red herring, it's the elephant in the room. Seriously, I think the incident it's a hard lesson for airport designer and ICAO. For better civil aviation safety, the next airport runway should have ample room for safer aircraft landing without landing gears. Previously there's no real-time aircraft tracking requirement for passenger aircraft only for cargo, but after MH370 it's mandatory now and even ICAO acknowledged this very reason for the new regulations introduction.

SR2Z 2y ago
Very, very few airport runways are long enough for a plane without brakes to land halfway and be fine. It's simply not possible to build airports in useful places and guarantee three-mile runways.
- teleforce 2y ago
  Apparently runaway excursions is the third cause of major accidents of large commercial transport aircraft [1]. Muan airport runway distance is one the shortest in Korea, less than 3 km and ironically during the incident reportedly there is an ongoing construction to increase the length of the runaway to more than 3 km, but effectively further shorten the runaway to 2.5 km (similar to Yangyang Airport). Strangely South Korea has many shorter runway international airports. Most of the modern international airport have more than 4 km runway, and new major airports for example Qatar Doha, US Denver and SA Upington has runaway length close to 5 km. [1] Operational Landing Distances: A new standard for in-flight landing distance assessment. [2] Muan Airport runway previously shortened, impact under scrutiny: https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389538 https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389538
  - FabHK 2y ago
    > new major airports for example Qatar Doha, US Denver and SA Upington has runaway length close to 5 km. These are by no means average "new major airports". Denver airport (from 1989) is the west's largest airport (by land area), and at 5000 ft+ elevation (necessitating longer runways). Upington in the far North-West of South Africa was built in 1968 to accommodate a full Boeing 747 flying to Europe non-stop during the apartheid regime when sanctions meant that overflight or stops in the rest of Africa were not feasible. It has one of the longest runways in the world due to the use case and hot & high environment at 2800 ft (and was intended as an emergency runway for Space Shuttles, if memory serves correctly). It is hardly used anymore with less than 20 aircraft movements a day. There is no recent trend for longer runways. The issue is extremely well known and well understood, by and large.

tooltalk 2y ago

Occam's razor: the wall is most probably the cause of the unnecessary explosion that killed 179 people. The airport built ILS, or localizer, on unnecessarily over-engineered concrete structure where there shouldn't have been any obstruction. The ILS are supposed to be built on level surface or "frangile" structure so they can be easily destroyed when there is an overrun. There are reportedly at least 4 other airports with such obstructions in South Korea -- at Yeosu, it's 4 meters high (also concrete foundation)[1]. <strikethrough>There was a similar accident in Hiroshima, Japan several years ago: Airbus A320-200 skidded past the end of the runway at similar speed and struck down ILS. It eventually stopped -- damaged the airplane but no fatality.</strikethrough> 1. Localizer at Yeosu Airport, similar to Muan's, raises safety concerns, 2025.01.02 (23:58), KBS News.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
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- dredmorbius 2y ago
  The pilots on 9/11 were intentionally directing their aircraft toward specific structures to maximise destruction, casualties, and terrorist impact. That was their express intent and mission for which they had specifically trained. In all likelihood the pilot of Jeju 2216 was not specifically directing his aircraft to the nonfrangible ILS Muan Murder Wall. There is no way to charitably argue otherwise.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- sitkack 2y ago
  You are disingenuously misrepresenting their argument. Please don't.
2y ago

markdown 2y ago

What a lame comment. This isn't how aviation safety is managed. You expect planes to land halfway down the runway at high speed and out of control. It's an eventual certainty. > In SFO you'll end up in the bay or hit the terminal depending on the orientation. In Toronto you'll crash into a highway. Ending up in a bay or crashing into a highway would likely have resulted in far less loss of life.

munchler 2y ago
And hitting the terminal would likely have resulted in far more loss of life. Are airport designers supposed to consider this as "an eventual certainty"?
- kijin 2y ago
  Terminals are generally located to the side of a runway at some distance, where a plane aligned with the runway is unlikely to hit them no matter how fast it's going. Not sure if there's a regulation that requires this kind of arrangement, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are stricter rules about structures that cross a plane's usual trajectory.
- scripturial 2y ago
  Yes, but there is no terminal at the end of this runway, so it’s irrelevant. The question is, wouldn’t it be safer to design airports to avoid having large concrete structures at the end of a runway in case there is a landing problem.
SR2Z 2y ago
Crashing into a highway would have resulted in similar loss of life. Airplanes are only barely safe when they land without gear, and almost any obstruction is going to be more solid than a machine that's built to be as lightweight as possible. There is no way to make a runway safe if a plane lands halfway down it, even if the brakes and landing gear are actually working. It's just not possible; runways are limited by geography and we tend to run aircraft as heavy as possible.
WalterBright 2y ago

dredmorbius 2y ago

At the moment before encountering the Muan Murder Wall, there were 181 souls alive, healthy, and uninjured aboard Jeju Air Flight 2216. At the moment after encountering the Muan Murder Wall, there were 2 souls alive, one severely injured, and 179 corpses, most mutilated beyond all recognition. Multiple things had clearly gone wrong with the flight, and we're going to have to wait for results of investigations to determine what crew and/or ATC actions and decisions contributed. But the principle lethal mechanism was impact with the immovable object of the Muan Murder Wall, and the ensuing instantaneous deceleration, disintegration, and conflagration of the aircraft and the souls aboard. Even with multiple contributing factors, had the Muan Murder Wall not existed at that location, the aircraft would have overrun the runway and quite possibly airport perimeter, but would have slowed far more gradually and likely encountered structures less substantial than the Muan Murder Wall. Wikipedia has a category page listing 55 runway overruns: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_involving_runway_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_an...> Sampling from that we find that such accidents often result in no or few fatalities, particularly on landing. E.g.: - Sriwijaya Air Flight 062 (2008): 130 souls, 124 passengers, 6 crew, 1 fatality, 23 injuries, 130 survivors. The aircraft struck a house, 3 of the injured were occupants. The sole fatality occurred some time after the incident. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriwijaya_Air_Flight_062 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriwijaya_Air_Flight_062> - China Eastern Airlines Flight 5398 (1993): 80 souls, 71 passengers, 9 crew, 2 fatalities, 10 injuries, 78 survivors. The aircraft experienced a tailstrike during a go-around attempt in heavy rain / high winds, broke in three, and came to rest in a pond. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_5398 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_...> - Philippine Airlines Flight 137 (1998): 130 souls, 124 passengers, 6 crew, 0 fatalities, 44 injuries, 130 survivors. Ground casualties: 3 dead, 25 injured, as aircraft ploughed through a residential area. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_137 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_137> - American Airlines Flight 331 (2009): 154 souls, 148 passengers, 6 crew, 0 fatalities, 85 injuries, 154 survivors. Aircraft landed > 4,000 feet from the threshold with a tailwind in inclement weather. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_331 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_331> - TAM Airlines Flight 3054 (2007): 187 occupants, 181 passengers, 6 crew, 187 fatalities, 0 survivors. The exception in my (random) sample, this aircraft had a nonfunctional thrust reverser on the right engine. Lack of grooving on runway, heavy rain, hydroplaning, asymmetric thrust, and a large warehouse directly beyond the runway perimeter all contributed to the fatalities. I've omitted one link I'd selected, Air France Flight 007 (1962) as that incident occurred on takeoff, not landing, where fuel load and flight profile greatly alter conditions and likely outcome, and isn't directly comparable. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_007>. If anyone cares to examine the 50 other listings on the Wikipedia category page, I suspect a similar patter of largely survivable overrun incidents prevails. The conspicuous lack of Muan Murder Walls seems significant.

timewizard 2y ago

> The wall is a red herring. This is not how safety works. > Something bad is going to happen if you do that at any runway on earth. Then the question is can we do any sort of engineering to reduce the number of fatalities that might occur when this _inevitably_ happens. > Stop looking at the wall and look at the minutes before the crash. The plane hit the wall and exploded. The wall seems pretty important here. I mean, yes, there are also other problems to solve, but solving them does not let you off the hook here.

FabHK 2y ago
You could mandate that airports incorporate runways shaped as disks with 10 km diameter and another 5 km of empty space around them. Accidents would still happen.
- scripturial 2y ago
  Your suggestion is absurd and impractical. You’re not contributing anything useful. Of course accidents happen. Knowing accidents happen, People are asking why a large solid concrete structure is at the end of the runway. Especially given that it was known to be a bad idea.
- timewizard 2y ago
  Many runways have an ILS antenna installation inside the protected area. They just follow code guidelines that the mounts can only be so high above grade and must be frangible. This installation is different because of local conditions. They used a common local solution in an inappropriate area. There are dozens of ways to solve this problem. From the short term of better structure engineering to the long term of better ILS antenna installations that don't require such large structures in such commonly dangerous positions in the first place. We could even get into better run off engineering to handle the somewhat unusual case of a fully gear up landing. It's just insane to me to say "it's a red herring" as if this were a mystery novel and not an emergent failure of several safety mechanisms.

Aloisius 2y ago

> In SFO you'll end up in the bay or hit the terminal depending on the orientation. The bay is survivable and I don't think you can hit the terminal. You could possibly hit the freeway though. That said, two of the runways at SFO are 1.5 km longer than the one in Korea. > In Toronto you'll crash into a highway. That runway is 1.5 kilometers longer than the one in Korea and it's another kilometer to the highway that sits uphill.

reso 2y ago
In Toronto, the 427 is ~100m from the edge of 24R.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  Landings/takeoffs from 23/24R/24L are in the westerly direction (away from 427) due to prevailing winds.
  - guiriduro 2y ago
    But in an emergency is it impossible for aircraft to land in the opposite direction? That's what happened at Muan; the concrete structure was only present if the plane landed against the normal approach.
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      Impossible? No, but the fact that planes generally don't approach from that direction and there are other, longer runways to land means substantially reduce the risk of an already extremely rare event.

Xixi 2y ago

You are making an assumption here, that I think is unreasonable: that the pilots (who have probably landed at this airport hundreds of times, it's not like they don't know the place) were expecting a large piece of reinforced concrete to be in the path of the plane. I'm speculating, of course, but pilots made the decision to land there (albeit in a very short amount of time). They probably made the reasonable assumption that they could "safely" (as safe as it can be, of course) overshoot the runway in that direction. They were certainly not expecting to hit a concrete structure that would pulverize their plane. Having large concrete structures near airports is not unreasonable, hiding them absolutely is. If instead of a hidden piece of concrete it had been a terminal like in SFO, a sea wall, or another known hazardous structure, the pilots could very well have decided to land somewhere else. Including in the very large body of water next to (or beyond) the runway. You don't know, I don't know, and we might never know depending on what is uncovered by the investigation.

reso 2y ago
You're making an assumption that the outcome would have been different if that wall wasn't there. You're wrong. 50m past that wall is another wall, 5m after that is a highway.
- chii 2y ago
  the 2nd wall is a brick wall, rather than reinforced concrete (which is what seems to be the first wall). I dont think the plane would get pulverized hitting a brick wall, and the distance will also slow the speed. And the highway is not above the plane's travel axis, so the highway is a non sequitur. Not to mention even more distance to slow down.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Xixi 2y ago
  Indeed I'm making tons of assumptions, but you have not yet convinced me that they are wrong. A brick wall is no reinforced concrete, and how is a road at plane level fundamentally different from the runway the plane was "gliding" on?

sinuhe69 2y ago

I don’t think so. Would the localizer have been made of less rigid structure and not a steel-reinforced concrete, the fatality could be much lower. Also problematic is the brick wall at the end. They could make it as fence only and not a brick wall. That will help, too. Of course, one need to investigate the whole situation, for example why did the pilot choose to land immediately, why no flaps and spoilers were released and why no attempt has been made to manually release the landing gears (using gravity if needed) are things of intense scrutiny now.

Animats 2y ago

Right. Pilot boards agree on this. It's clear that the plane landed halfway down the runway at high speed, no gear, flaps, slats, or speed brakes. A runway overrun was inevitable from that point. Nobody knows yet why they landed in that configuration. Failed go-around? Engine out landing? Cut wrong engine after a bird strike? Loss of hydraulics? Too rushed for landing checklist in an emergency? All of those are possible. More than one may have happened. Wait for the flight data recorder data. One article says the runway was equipped with EMAS, an Engineered Materials Arresting System.[1] This sits in the area just past the end of the runway, the part marked with painted chevrons. It's a thin layer of concrete over blocks of a material which includes foamed plastic holding pumice-like rocks. If a plane overruns the runway, the wheels break through the thin concrete layer and start pushing through the plastic/rock mixture, grinding the rocks into powder to absorb the energy. This usually damages the landing gear, but the rest of the plane survives. 22 planes saved so far.[2][3] It didn't help here. The plane seems to have skidded over the EMAS area on its belly, instead of breaking through and getting the braking effect. The surface of the EMAS area has to be tough enough to survive jet blast on takeoffs, so it can't just be a sand pit. [1] https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 [2] https://ops.group/blog/swerving-to-avoid-why-arent-we-using-emas/ https://ops.group/blog/swerving-to-avoid-why-arent-we-using-... [3] https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/engineered-material-arresting-system-emas-0 https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/engineered-material-arresting-s...

oefrha 2y ago
> One article says the runway was equipped with EMAS, an Engineered Materials Arresting System. > https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202412300010 Nowhere in that article says Muan Airpot has EMAS, it says a local official confirmed that Songshan Airport in Taipei has EMAS, following local concerns that Songshan Airport has an even shorter runway (2600m vs 2800m in Muan). A thread full of armchair experts is already bad enough, please don't make it worse with seemingly well-supported misinformation.
- Animats 2y ago
  Oh, you're right. Different airport. Sorry. Muan does have the chevron markings on the overrun area, but that does not always indicate EMAS.

mannykannot 2y ago

This crash raises two separate questions: why did the airplane land the way it did, and did it make any sense to have a massive concrete barrier just off the end of the runway. The answer to either one does not render the other irrelevant. As it happens, we already know the answer to one of them.

YuukiRey 2y ago

If you can get the same features with less risk it seems like a worthwhile thing to consider. Meaning if we can build the same antenna array but with less risk to airplanes and all at an acceptable economical cost, it feels like something we should do. Regardless of whether or not a runway overrun at other airports and in other situations poses more or less risk.

alkonaut 2y ago

If it’s possible in any way to keep the next few km after a runway clear, then it should be clear. Ocean is great. Empty fields are great. If you are lucky enough to have empty fields but put a concrete wall there, then that’s almost malicious. The cause of any fatality in aviation is never a single thing. It’s invariably a chain of events where removing any one thing in the chain would prevent the disaster.

sho_hn 2y ago
Agreed. I work on a different type of vehicle with safety-critical systems for a living, and I'm naturally also very interested in the interactions between the pilots and the machine (and among themselves) and the spiral of events in the cockpit. But that doesn't mean debating whether there's a better way to engineer typhoon-resilient localizer antenna arrays isn't also a good use of time. Safety makes it imperative to discuss all of these matters exhaustively. Re ocean, no, that isn't so great - sea rescue is a lot more difficult to perform than on land.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  Sure but if you have 3km of open water following the runway then don’t block it with a concrete wall (even if that wall prevents storm flooding 2 days every 5 years). Sea rescue is a lot easier than rescuing people who drove into a concrete wall.
blitzar 2y ago
> If you are lucky enough to have empty fields but put a concrete wall there ... I am fairly sure this will be one of the findings of the investigation. I hazard a guess that every sane operator of an airport in the world is walking from the end of their runway to the airfield perimeter and taking a look anyway.
m463 2y ago
The wall might critical to keeping things off the runway, like animals and people.
- 2y ago

PicassoCTs 2y ago

Nowhere else on earth is that structure a concrete wall. Its always some rather flimsy metal structure- designed to crumble.

mda 2y ago

Terrible take, wall is not the red herring, wall is the reason of deaths of almost all souls in the plane. "Something bad is going to happen" usually has very different outcome than hitting a concrete wall. Aviation accident history definitely disagrees with you.

charlieyu1 2y ago

Disagree from Hong Kong. You would probably land on sea but probably end up with single digit causalities