Terrifying footage which shows a plane landing on its belly without its wheels has resurfaced online in the wake of the tragic South Korea plane crash, that took 179 lives just days ago.
Live television captured the horrifying moment a Boeing 767 carrying 231 passengers crashed onto Poland’s Warsaw Chopin airport runway in 2011 without its wheels deployed.
The jet had traveled to Poland from Newark, New Jersey, when pilots of the Polish LOT airlines flight noticed a problem and circled the airport for an hour, before making the tough call to land on the tarmac without the proper gear.
The nail-biting landing was watched live by millions and while the jet suffered a small fire and could be seen smoking on the runway, miraculously, no one was injured.
The re-emergence of the clip comes just days after a similar crash landing took place in South Korea on Sunday, December 29.
But, unlike the Polish LOT jet, the Jeju Air plane landing ended in tragedy as all but two people of the 181 on board died in what is now considered the worst aviation disaster in the country.
Video footage shows the plane hit the runway at Muan International Airport on its belly as part of an emergency landing – which was the plane’s second attempt of landing – traveling at high speeds before it smashed into a concrete barrier at the end of the runway and exploded into a deadly fireball.
While the exact cause of the crash is yet to be determined, many have been drawing differences between the two landings and speculating why Jeju Air’s landing ended in disaster.
Aviation expert Julian Bray told The Sun that pilots and crews have ‘rehearsed’ emergency landings like these ‘many times’ through regular simulators, and that most aircrafts have manual levers to deploy landing gear if the hydraulics fail.
Yet the expert pointed out the Polish jet landed ‘far more relaxed’, which he explained was because the pilot had time to dump fuel and slow down to 120 miles per hour – and had two working engines.
Meanwhile, he suspects the South Korean pilot was forced to wrestle with a sudden engine failure or other damages in the sky, possibly caused by a bird collision.
Mr Bray said: “You don’t know whether you’re running on the reserve electrics because the generator’s not working – that of course works the hydraulic pumps and enables the wheels to come down and a dozen other things. So if he hasn’t got that, he’s got a problem.”
Mr Bray explained the pilot could’ve got the wheels down on the first landing attempt but when trying on the go around, ‘there might have been a bird nest and that might have fouled up the system’.
“We don’t know – we’re going to have to find out,” he added. “The point is the wheels go up, they’re locked and that’s it, they remain locked. So he hasn’t got a lot of time, and he’s got a lot of things distracting him.”
The insight comes after reports suggest the pilot issued a mayday call to ground control about a bird strike, and the video shows the jet was approaching the runway when its right engine was ‘struck’.
As for the concrete ‘wall’ at the end of the 2,800-metre runway, Mr Bray said it’s not a wall but a slab that should’ve collapsed upon impact.
He added: “I’m afraid they didn’t have a chance. If that wasn’t there, then there’s a good hope that everybody could have been saved.”
The investigation into the crash continues.
