South Korean airport was warned repeatedly about bird strikes before deadly Jeju Air crash

MUAN, South Korea – The latest warning came 10 days before the

deadliest air crash in South Korea

.

A dozen officials gathered inside a room at Muan International Airport for a meeting of a bird strike prevention committee. They discussed the number of aircraft being hit by birds, with data showing a jump in incidents over the past couple of years.

One official, from one of the country’s aviation training institutes, expressed concern that planes coming in to land often encountered flocks of birds by the coastline, according to a record of the meeting obtained by a lawmaker. To what extent is it possible to keep the birds away, the official asked.

The answer was not reassuring. There were not enough people and cars deployed at the airport to keep birds away, and sounds from loudspeakers used to broadcast noises to scare birds off were not strong enough to reach far enough beyond the airport, said an official from the company that managed the airport’s facilities. He noted that they “were trying their best”.

Then, on Dec 29, 2024, the pilot of Jeju Air Flight 2216 declared “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” and told air traffic controllers there had been a bird strike as the plane was making its descent. After making a sharp turn, the jet landed on its belly, slid down the runway and rammed into a concrete barrier, exploding into a fireball that killed 179 of the 181 people on board.

Investigators have not identified the reasons for the crash and what role, if any, a bird strike might have played. But the country’s

Transport Ministry said bird feathers and blood were found in both of the jet’s engines

. The remains were identified as being from the Baikal teal, a migratory duck common to South Korea in winter that often flies in flocks of up to tens or even hundreds of thousands.

The Dec 19 meeting was not the first warning airport operators had received about birds. The dangers had been flagged for decades, dating back to even before the Muan airport opened in 2007, according to a New York Times examination of thousands of pages of government documents, interviews with dozens of people, and a visit to the wetlands surrounding the airport in the country’s south-west.

Environmental assessments in 1998 and 2008 also noted there were many species of birds living close to the airport.

Most starkly, in 2020, when the airport began renovations that would include the extension of its runway, South Korea’s Environmental Impact Assessment service said there was “a high risk of bird strikes during take-off and landing”. It advised that measures were needed to reduce the risk.

The Korea Airports Corp said in response to questions from the New York Times that to prevent bird strikes, it had used vehicles and noise makers to disperse flocks of birds and had conducted environmental surveys to monitor the airport’s surrounding habitats. The company said more loudspeakers were installed on airport premises after the Dec 19 meeting.

But like most smaller airports in South Korea, Muan still lacked thermal imaging cameras and bird detection radar used to alert air traffic controllers and pilots to the presence of birds, according to the government.

Airports everywhere are advised to have such measures in place, according to guidelines from the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a United Nations agency that sets global standards for the aviation industry.

“The regulations are there, but people have been breaking them without any repercussions,” says Dr Nial Moores, the national director of Birds Korea, a bird conservation group. “They were warned about the risk of a bird strike,” he added. “How come nothing has changed?”

In addition to failing to follow international guidelines, the airport’s operators also breached domestic safety regulations.

On the day of the crash in Muan, only one person was on duty to watch out for birds, instead of a minimum of two that government rules require, according to lawmakers at a parliamentary committee hearing into the disaster.

That bird patroller was at the end of a 15-hour night shift, the period when the vast majority of bird strikes take place, according to a presentation by lawmaker Moon Geum-joo at the committee hearing. Mr Joo Jong-wan, the head of the Transport Ministry’s aviation policy, conceded that the airport’s patrol was understaffed and said all airports would meet the minimum staffing in the future.

The Korea Airports Corp said it had adhered to government standards and was hiring more staff to prevent bird collisions. The Transport Ministry declined to comment.

In addition, at least one person required to attend the meeting of the bird strike prevention committee had missed the Dec 19 meeting, an official from the Korea Airports Corp acknowledged at the parliamentary hearing. The state-owned company operates almost all of South Korea’s airports, including the one in Muan.

“It’s a shame that they have known about their shortcomings for years, but nothing has actually been done to improve,” said Mr Kwon Hyang-Yup, an opposition lawmaker who obtained the bird safety committee report.

While airplane strikes with wildlife are not uncommon, most do not cause planes to crash. Out of nearly 20,000 wildlife strikes in the US in 2023, about 4 per cent caused damage to the plane.

Since the crash, South Korea’s government has pledged 247 billion won (S$227.7 million) over three years to improve bird-strike prevention measures at all the country’s airports.

Planned measures include installing bird detection devices and implementing a national radar model to alert people in control towers, patrollers on the ground and pilots to the presence of birds.

Some experts ask whether the Muan airport should have been built at all because of the abundance of birds in the wetlands surrounding it. The airport has at least twice reported the highest number of bird strikes out of the country’s 15 airports over the past five years, with six cases in 2024, up from two the previous year.

Its rate of bird strikes was 10 times that of Incheon International Airport, the nation’s largest, according to data released by Mr Kwon, the lawmaker.

Incheon, which also lies close to bird habitats, has identified almost 100 species of birds in its vicinity. It has four thermal imaging cameras, two devices that emit bird-repelling noises, and 48 workers assigned to bird control, according to an airport representative.

Mr Ju Yung-Ki, a researcher and conservationist who has visited the Muan area repeatedly in recent years, was working in his office on Dec 29, 2024, when he learnt about the plane crash.

“I had always thought there was a risk of a bird strike there,” said Mr Ju, the director of the Ecoculture Institute. He had flown in and out of the Muan airport several times, despite his concerns.

After hearing news of the crash, he travelled about 112km from his home in Jeonju, north-east of Muan, to a lake near the airport and arrived at about 4.30pm. He could see the charred tail of the plane and the wreckage at the end of the runway. “It was horrific,” he said, adding that he shed tears thinking about the people who had died.

As that afternoon progressed, he also located flocks of up to 300,000 Baikal teals about 30km from the airport. They fly at least that distance to search for food, and he observed with binoculars and a telescope that the airport was in their daily flight path.

The Baikal teal is not particularly big, at about 40cm long with a 20cm wingspan. But the ducks move in large, agile flocks that can reach as many as one million in number, said Dr Moores of Birds Korea. They breed in Siberia and arrive on the south-western coast of South Korea in October and stay through early March.

Muan, almost 320km south of Seoul, lies among the marshy grasslands and reservoirs across the south-western peninsula, where the duck and other species of birds roost in pockets of calm water. Local business owners said that flocks of birds were most often seen at a country club near the airport, about 6km away.

An enforcement regulation attached to South Korea’s Airport Facilities Act in 2017 stipulates that an airport cannot be built within 8km of a bird sanctuary or game reserve.

But according to the nation’s Environment Ministry, there is only one such sanctuary in Muan, and that lies about 19km from the airport.

Conservationists say the reality is different. They say the term sanctuary – classified as a collective habitat and breeding ground for endangered wildlife – ignores many of the region’s populous bird habitats. A map by the Korean Office of Civil Aviation identifies four areas surrounding the Muan airport where birds feed and roost.

Some of those spots are as close as a little over 1.6km from the airport. On one morning in February, hundreds of birds flew overhead at around this distance. Larger birds flew in a “V” formation, while smaller ones wove in and out in an aerial dance.

“It’s not a matter of whether the Muan International Airport is near a sanctuary or not,” Mr Ju said. “The fact is that there are a lot of birds that live there.”

The decision on whether an area is a sanctuary lies with the mayor or governor, according to South Korea’s Wildlife Protection and Management Act. There are about 400 of these protected areas nationwide, according to the Ministry of Environment.

Experts say that no matter how many preventive efforts are undertaken, bird strikes cannot be totally eliminated. “The obvious thing is not to build an airport where there are a lot of birds,” said Mr Keith Mackey, an American aviation expert and safety consultant based in Ocala, Florida.

Other methods that could be deployed to deter birds include using brightly coloured paint on the runway and drones to disperse nearby flocks, he said.

Muan’s airport has been closed since the Dec 29 crash and will not resume commercial flights until April 18 at the earliest. The airport recently resumed medical and training flights.

South Korea has ambitious plans to build 10 airports over the next few decades in response to booming regional demand for increased overseas travel. Several will also be along the western coastline. One is of particular concern to conservationists: in Saemangeum, about 105km north of Muan.

The proposed airport, which is scheduled to open in 2029, lies within 6km of the Seocheon Tidal Flat, a Unesco Heritage Site that is home to dozens of nationally protected wildlife species including birds, according to activist Kim Nahee, who is protesting against the construction of the new airport.

Officials in North Jeolla province, where Saemangeum is located, said “there was no infrastructure that would disturb the flight path of birds”, citing an analysis it had received from the government environmental agency.

“They shouldn’t have built the Muan International Airport where they did,” Ms Kim said. “This can’t happen again.” NYTIMES