Insufficient time for belly landing preparations to have exacerbated accident

[Anchor]

Now, let's examine whether the belly landing at that time was appropriate, whether it exacerbated the damage, and whether there was a lack of prior preparation.

Reporter Lee Yoon-woo has looked into this.

[Report]

In 2002, a Philippine aircraft carrying over 20 Korean tourists was heading to Boracay.

The landing gear failed to operate, and the aircraft made a belly landing at Manila Airport, but there were no injuries among the passengers.

It was a similar case of a belly landing, but the scale of damage was markedly different.

A belly landing refers to a method of landing an aircraft by directly rubbing the fuselage against the ground to reduce speed when the landing gear and other landing devices do not operate.

It is essentially the last resort landing method that pilots can choose.

[Song Byeong-heum/Honorary Professor, Korea Aerospace University: "When the gear does not come down, the only way to land on the ground is through a belly landing."]

However, in this incident, after the belly landing, the front part of the aircraft remained lifted while it raced down the runway and immediately collided with the outer wall, leading to analysis that there was insufficient friction during the landing process to reduce speed.

[Song Byeong-heum/Honorary Professor, Korea Aerospace University: "When a belly landing occurs, the back part of the aircraft drags along, significantly reducing speed. If gravity is slightly on the wing side, the speed increases because the weight feels lighter, resulting in less friction and possibly increasing speed."]

It also appears that there was a lack of prior preparations to minimize the impact during the belly landing.

Processes such as laying special foam on the airport runway or installing nets would have been necessary, but there were no signs of such preparations at the scene.

[Kim Gyu-wang/Professor, Hanseo University Department of Aviation Management: "The pilot communicates with the control tower, saying that the landing gear is not coming down. So, they inform the tower that they may need to belly land and ask for preparations. It seems there wasn't enough time for such preparations."]

The time it took between the pilot declaring an emergency due to a bird strike and the landing was only 4 minutes.

This short period made prior preparations for the belly landing difficult, and is presumed to have exacerbated the accident.

This is KBS News, Lee Yoon-woo.