Why was there a wall near the track?

Aviation experts have raised questions about an “unusual” concrete wall near the runway and its role in the South Korean plane crash that killed 179 people.

Footage shows the Jeju Air plane leaving the runway before hitting the wall and bursting into flames at Muan International Airport.

Authorities investigating the cause of South Korea’s worst plane crash in history are considering the significance of the location of the concrete wall about 250 meters (820 feet) from the end of the runway.

Aviation safety expert David Learmount said that if the “obstruction” were not there, the plane “would have come to a stop with most – possibly all – of those on board still alive.”

The pilot reported that the plane had struck a bird and then aborted the original landing and requested permission to land in the opposite direction.

The plane descended some distance along the 2,800-meter runway and appeared to land without using its wheels or any other landing gear.

Learmount said that the landing was “as good as a landing without flaps or gear could be: wings level, nose not too high to avoid breaking the tail” and that the plane had not suffered substantial damage while sliding down the runway.

“The reason so many people died was not the landing itself, but the fact that the plane hit a very hard obstruction right at the end of the runway,” he said.

Christian Beckert, a Munich-based Lufthansa pilot, called the concrete structure “unusual” and told Reuters news agency: “Normally, at an airport with a runway at the end, there is no wall.”

The concrete structure houses a navigation system that helps aircraft land, known as a localizer, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

It is 4 meters high, covered in dirt, and was raised to keep the tracker level with the runway and ensure it works properly, Yonhap reported.

South Korea’s Transportation Ministry has said other airports in the country and some abroad have the equipment installed with concrete structures. However, officials will examine whether it should have been made from lighter materials that would break more easily in the event of an impact.

Chris Kingswood, a pilot with 48 years’ experience who has flown the same type of plane involved in the crash, told BBC News: “Obstacles within a certain range and distance of the runway must be frangible, meaning that if A plane surprises them and they break down.

“It seems unusual for it to be something so rigid. The plane, from what I understand, was traveling very fast, it landed very far from the runway, so it will have traveled a long way past the end of the runway… So, does Where will you draw the line with that? That is certainly something that will be investigated.

“Airplanes are not strong structures; they are, by design, lightweight to be efficient in flight. They are not actually designed to fly at high speed on their bellies, so any type of structure could cause the fuselage to break.” and then it breaks.” catastrophic.

“Fuel is held in the wings, so once the wing breaks, the fire potential is significant.

“So it’s not a fact that if the wall hadn’t been there, the outcome would have been completely different.”

Kingswood said he would be “surprised if the airfield had not met all the requirements according to industry standards”.

“I suspect that if we were to tour the airfields of many of the major international airports… we would find many obstacles that could also be accused of presenting a danger,” he added.

Aviation analyst Sally Gethin questioned whether the pilot knew the barrier was there, particularly given that the plane was approaching from the opposite direction to its usual landing direction.

She told BBC News: “We need to know: were they (the pilots) aware that there was a hard limit in the end?

“If the control tower ordered them to reverse the use of the runway the second time, that should come to light in the black box investigation.

“I think there are a lot of questions.”