SEOUL: A day after South Korea’s deadliest plane crash, Jeju Air said a flight from Seoul had to turn back on Monday after experiencing a landing gear problem.
The Boeing 737-800 involved in the latest incident was the same model as the Jeju Air plane that crashed on Sunday after coming down without landing gear, killing 179 people.
The South Korean airline said Jeju Air flight 7C101, from Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport to Jeju Island “at 6:37 a.m., returned to Gimpo at 7:25 a.m.” when a landing gear problem occurred shortly after takeoff. found
“Shortly after takeoff, the plane’s monitoring system detected a signal indicating a problem with the landing gear,” Song Kyung-hoon, head of the management support office at Jeju Air, told a news conference.
“At 6:57 a.m., the captain communicated with ground control, and after taking additional measures, the landing gear returned to normal. However, the decision was made to return the aircraft to the airport for a full inspection.”
Local media reported that 21 passengers chose not to board the alternate flight to Jeju for safety and other reasons.
Jeju Air’s fleet of 41 aircraft includes 39 Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Seoul said on Monday it would carry out a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes operating in the country, with US investigators, possibly including planemaker Boeing, joining the crash investigation.
“We are reviewing plans to conduct special inspections on B737-800 aircraft,” said Jo Jong-wan, head of the aviation policy bureau at South Korea’s transport ministry.
Joe added that the government plans to “implement stricter aviation safety inspections” in response to the (landing gear) incidents.
In Sunday’s crash at Moan, a Boeing 737-800 carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea went belly-up before hitting a barrier and bursting into flames.
All aboard Jeju Air Flight 2216 were killed, two flight attendants were pulled from the wreckage.