Jeju Air disaster spurs runway safety rethink

After a plane overshot a runway in South Korea, killing 179 people, a Times analysis found that global standards that help minimise fatalities are inconsistently followed, writes River Akira Davis and Selam Gebrekidan in Tokyo and Hong Kong

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Jeju Air Flight 2216 did not have to end in such a catastrophe. Early on Dec 29, a clear Sunday morning, the Boeing 737-800 made an emergency landing on its belly at South Korea's Muan International Airport. The aircraft skidded past the end of the runway, smashed into a concrete structure and burst into flames. Of the 181 passengers and crew members aboard, 179 were killed.

Runway excursions — when an aircraft overruns or veers off the runway during landing or takeoff — have for years been among the most common type of aviation accident. But in the vast majority of cases, the planes come safely to a stop, saved in part by zones around runways that are supposed to contain only structures that are frangible, meaning designed to break easily upon impact.

The New York Times analysed information on more than 500 runway excursions and found that 41 resulted in deaths. In 2010, 158 people died when a flight in India overran the runway and fell into a gorge. But no other runway excursion has come close to the death toll at Muan airport, according to the data, which was compiled by the non-profit Flight Safety Foundation.

Accidents in which planes hit breakable structures at the end of runways have tended not to be deadly.

The story behind why a steel-reinforced concrete structure stood so close to a runway illustrates a longstanding vulnerability in global air transport. A United Nations aviation safety agency issues recommendations to keep the area near airport runways clear of obstacles. But it is up to national regulators and private companies that manage airports to interpret, implement and oversee compliance with those standards.

Inquiries by The Times to airport regulators in more than two dozen countries revealed inconsistencies in how they interpret the standards issued by the UN agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).