Most of the passengers died...Why was the damage so bad?

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor, Jung Ji-woong Anchor
■ Starring: Lee Young-joo, Professor of Fire and Disaster Prevention at Kyungil University

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN News Special] when quoting.

[Anchor]
The Jeju Air passenger plane disaster, this time let's go over it with an expert. With Lee Young-joo, a professor of fire and disaster prevention at Kyungil University.
Welcome. I also connected the scene of the accident and delivered the situation of the site. They are also working on identification right now. What would be the most difficult thing in the field right now?

[Lee Young-joo]
As you said, there have been many deaths anyway, but it is difficult to identify the body itself despite the fact that the bereaved families feel very sorry and terrible. So anyway, we need to provide sufficient support for these areas so that the recovery, identification, delivery, and arrangement of the body on the site can be carried out smoothly.

Also, in this process, these things seem more important than anything else, such as delivering accurate information about the situation to the bereaved families who are heartbroken so that they do not have any inconvenience or pain. On the other hand, it is necessary to manage the accumulation of fatigue and psychological conditions of firefighters and civil servants who are very active on the field from yesterday to today. These parts seem to be needed. On the other hand, in terms of functionality, the Muan Airport itself is closed due to an accident, so these parts should be included as much as possible to support and guide those who are scheduled to use this airport so that there is no inconvenience to those who are scheduled to use it.

[Anchor]
All but two survivors are sadly dead. There are also concerns that identification may be delayed even though the victim's recovery has been completed and identification is in progress.

[Lee Young-joo]
It seems that about 30 people have not been identified so far. In fact, the fire was so strong that the body must have been damaged a lot. So, for example, there won't be a lot of fingerprints left.
In the case of such bodies, it is inevitable that these parts can be identified through DNA collection, but even if we actually collect this process, we also need a process of matching it with the control group and their families.
DNA-related parts also take time. On the other hand, if it is damaged too strongly by the fire, DNA detection itself is not well performed, and rather time is delayed. So for that reason, we are doing our best to focus on identification and these processes, so we hope that the identification of the victims and such can be accurate.

[Anchor]
The exact cause of the accident takes about a few months to come out exactly, but there are various accident situations and things that can be confirmed inside and outside. As for the cause of such great damage, what do you think is a big factor in your personal view?

[Lee Young-joo]
Immediately after the first accident yesterday, the landing gear did not work properly, so for example, the landing caused the accident and increased the damage. Looking at the various situations over the course of a day, it is natural that the landing gear was not working and had to make a fuselage landing, which was much more dangerous than the normal landing situation. However, in the previous stage, it is necessary to further investigate whether the fuselage landing should have been done in such an urgent situation and the cause of the landing, but there was a normal landing process at the time, and a warning about a bird collision was delivered in the process, and a rescue signal and a distress signal came a minute later.

Something went wrong in this process, so what I'm expecting now is that there must have been a bird strike. I'm guessing most of the time, and there are circumstances like that.In any case, the landing took place in a situation where the aircraft could not operate normally or land in a situation where sufficient safety measures or such situations could not be considered, and coincidentally, the situation of sliding on the runway and crashing into the wall led to a fire explosion, and in fact, it was an instant disaster where there was no time for the people in it to escape on their own or rescue someone.

[Anchor]
You said that the landing gear may not have worked for various reasons, but if the landing gear doesn't work automatically, I think there's a way to do it manually or something else, but I think it didn't work out?

[Lee Young-joo]
That's why many aircraft experts are wondering or saying that it needs to be investigated. In order to operate the landing gear, hydraulic systems must be operated, and in the case of hydraulic systems, they are actually responsible for transmitting power. But these parts may not work because there is a problem. So to prepare for these things, we overlapped hydraulic systems on both wings. So even if one side has a problem, the other side is supposed to function and operate normally, and if there is a problem with the operating control system that operates these things, it was possible to deploy these parts manually, but all of these parts seem to have not worked properly. Therefore, even though these various safety devices are in place, the reason why these things did not function properly is actually very difficult to occur in a probabilistic way, but it seems necessary to investigate more closely about this situation itself. In any case
we're now focusing a little more on the parts where the hydraulic system on both sides has not been operated, which is why the landing gear has not been unfolded.

[Anchor]
I think we can learn more about that part by analyzing flight recorders and voice recorders later, but some pointed out that one of the reasons for the damage was that the mudflats were made of concrete after the fuselage landing, and there was an answer from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport briefing this morning. Let's hear what it's about. [Anchor] So this blunt object, this is called local riser equipment, and it must be installed, but why was it made of concrete, and this made it even more angry.

[Lee Young-joo]
As previously announced, most of the airport facilities are not arbitrarily installed or anything like that. Basically, there are regulations and standards for installation, and those are not simply part of domestic law, but are applied by internationally accepted standards. In particular, in the case of international airports, these facilities are probably legally installed because various facility standards and safety standards must be certified as international airports.

However, the problem was that the support part of the localizer and the structure of the support support were made of concrete, so the upper localizer itself was satisfied with the fact that it should break easily in case of something caught or hit so that there was no physical impact on the aircraft or the hit, but there seems to be a slight difference in whether such parts should be considered, including the lower structure and the support structure. However, there was a problem with the support part because it collided.Ma said that if this support structure itself also has the main purpose of fixing the localizer well, it may be difficult to conclude that this is the wrong installation. Unfortunately, it's a pity that it collided with you and caused a problem.

[Anchor]
Do you think the actual damage would have been reduced more if the concrete structure, the hillside, had the localizer not been there or were further away?

[Lee Young-joo]
It's a consequential story, so if you didn't crash here, there's a good chance you wouldn't have crashed somewhere else, and there's a possibility that a fire might have occurred for another reason. However, the primary collisions, in short, what we're thinking about now, hit here, so I think it would have been safe without him, but without that, there is a possibility that another variable would have suffered a different pattern of damage. So, unfortunately, it's a shame that we wish we had taken care of this beforehand and eliminated it, but even if we didn't have it, it's right to say that there would have been risks in other situations or other types of accidents.

[Anchor] Witnesses continue to testify about what the situation was like at the time of the
accident. It can be said that it was a very urgent situation, but let's hear a little bit about what's being said.

[Anchor]
I didn't see a flock of ducks at the time of the accident, but there were testimonies from residents that there were a lot of ducks these days.

[Lee Young-joo]
That's right. There are a lot of these bird habitats around this Muan Airport compared to other places, and according to ornithologists, there are more bird movements to find food and other things in the morning.

[Anchor]
The morning could be more dangerous, right?

[Lee Young-joo]
So if you look at various circumstances, compared to other airports, you can see birds on the screen.Ma has a lot of these clustering things in close proximity to Muan Airport. I think I can tell you that there was a little more risk of the appearance of other birds and these parts than there were other parts.

[Anchor]
In this case, do you have various ways of chasing birds at the airport level?

[Lee Young-joo]
After the current situation occurred, I checked that about four people are assigned to Muan Airport as personnel in charge of chasing the set of people. As soon as possible, there are cases where birds are temporarily chased by making loud noises, gunshots, and so on. Various measures are being taken to emit sound waves in the frequency band that birds dislike so that they do not come close to each other, or to irradiate strong light during takeoff and landing of an aircraft so that these parts do not come and shoot light to prevent them from coming.

However, the problem is that even if you take this action, the birds will fly temporarily and then come back again. So, it's not possible to do it 24 hours a day, so it's centered around the time when the plane goes up, gets off, and the time when the birds come in, and these are all out of control as we want, so it's kind of difficult to completely control these parts, reduce the risk, and exclude them. Let's look at it like this. [Anchor] In a briefing by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport this morning, 4 people were originally hired for Bird Strike and 2 people were hired on the day of the incident, but many people are curious about Bird Strike, which is not the first time they have heard of it, and it often occurs in other countries, but it has led to such a large abnormality.

[Lee Young-joo]
That's right. Even if a bird strike itself occurs, even if there are various obstacles or risk factors, there are many cases where it does not lead to such a big accident, such as temporary damage or disability of operation. So even if it becomes a serious risk, just because a bird strike occurs unconditionally, it leads to serious damage or danger. It's hard to say this.

Nevertheless, in a way, these risk factors can lead to great damage, so it is important to prevent even minor bird strikes as much as possible. sensitive to what is called aircraft . It's true that there are a lot of big, advanced, and flight environments, so there are a lot of these variables that don't know what kind of risk a small bird collision will cause, so there are things that need to be managed and prepared enough.

[Anchor]
I think some people point out that the location of Muan Airport itself can be a problem when looking at the surrounding environment. How do you see it?

[Lee Young-joo]
In fact, it would be best if we could consider the habitat of birds and various situations, as you mentioned when it was first built.In any case, the location of establishing an airport, as well as these environmental requirements, but also the functionality of basic location-related parts is important, so after meeting those things, I would like you to consider these things, such as algae.Ma said those factors were probably not the top priority considerations. So, after building it all, there are a lot of wetlands around here, or bird habitats, and the fact that these things act as risk factors that can affect flight can be considered regrettable in a way.

[Anchor]
At the time of landing, the scene of abnormalities in the aircraft due to bird strikes was seen on the screen as white smoke was emitted, and I heard that there were two engines in the aircraft, but all these records can be found through the black box, and how long does it take to analyze the record?

[Lee Young-joo]
There are two main types of black boxes right now, and one is a device that stores flight records. One is the audio record, or the communication between the cockpit and the control tower, and the captain and the assistant captain and the crew inside the cockpit, so if you compare these two records and check them, you'll be able to see most of what risk factors were identified at the time, what kind of requests were made, and what controls or commands were given.

[Anchor]
Does the captain usually choose from such a manual option in that situation, or does the control tower give instructions?

[Lee Young-joo]
I actually listen to the captain's opinions on things related to the operation, but I have to follow the command of the control tower. It requires the pilot's judgment to select a route or to control various things in it, but basically, for example, the location or direction of the runway that needs to be landed, the selection of the runway, the selection of the direction, and the various related conditions and environments on the ground related to landing are controlled by the control tower. You can see it like this. As you said, in general, when there is a problem with one engine, most of the views are that it is possible to land sufficiently with the other engine.

In that case, but in this situation, only one side has a problem, but why did you return to the port and turn around so rapidly and land is a question and should be identified. I'm cautious, but experts say this. Maybe there was a problem with both engines. There are also rumors that there was not enough time to prepare for landing again after sufficient time because both engines were not likely to have bird strikes, but both engines were malfunctioning at the same time. So, if you look at the video earlier, some parts of the smoke coming out from the other side, not the other side, have been confirmed, so the possibility is putting a little weight on it.

[Anchor]
What is the situation when you usually talk about Mayday? Does the manual mean that the captain can no longer do anything about it?

[Lee Young-joo]
This is because the risk of passengers and the plane itself is quite high, so separate measures are needed in these areas. Things that are not normal. That's why I ask for May Day at a time like this. In this situation, it's obvious that it's an emergency, but it's an emergency situation where you communicate with the control tower and prepare for it by sending and receiving all the necessary measures and information. So, it seems that Mayday was requested, and in this dangerous situation, it was not able to land again, and then it went up again, and then the control tower guided it toward runway 019, not runway 01 where it was originally intended to land.

Because I knew information about such emergency situations. So, although these parts were induced, I think it was difficult to land in a short time and a short radius of rotation to reach the optimal safety situation.

[Anchor]
Looking at the past, how many cases do you think the captain shouts Mayday like this and tells the control tower?

[Lee Young-joo]
There are a lot. Even if it does not lead to such great damage, there may be situations in which Mayday is requested if there are situations in which sudden abnormalities are found and need to be taken action. In fact, there may be situations in which Mayday is requested when such a risk sign is quite large and it is necessary to deal with these areas sufficiently, rather than necessarily because of a big accident.

[Anchor]
What about the manual? If I ask for Mayday, will the control tower immediately ask for support from the fire brigade?

[Lee Young-joo]
This part may be a little different, but it depends on the situation of May Day. In this case, if there was a problem with both engines and they had to land urgently, they would have contacted the fire department right away because they had to prepare for fires like this and various injuries. So the fire brigade would have done so to prepare for an urgent landing. The airport is mostly prepared by firefighters. dedicated to the fire at the airport, not the usual local fire brigade.

[Anchor]
It's like waiting all the time, right?

[Lee Young-joo]
We have airport fire brigade in place. Because aircraft fires at airports are very special, they are highly dangerous and have different methods of extinguishing them, so they have trained firefighters specialized in them.

[Anchor]
How are the suppression methods different?

[Lee Young-joo]
In the case of suppression methods, in general, in the case of aircraft fires that are extinguished by using water, most of them are oil fires, and because the fire is very strong and formed like this, it is quite difficult to suppress with water. Therefore, these methods are used to increase the effectiveness of fire suppression by using foam fire extinguishing facilities that block suffocation, cooling fire extinguishing, and radiant heat. So even at this time, firefighters would have received these calls and prepared. However, it would have been possible to arrive at the site quickly after landing.There was not enough time for Ma to go ahead and wait. It can be said that the landing was in a very urgent situation.

[Anchor]
However, according to reports, there are such news that in the case of this accident, Mayday was requested and the control tower ordered the fire department to be dispatched about five minutes later. Isn't it too late?

[Lee Young-joo]
However, this part may be a little different, as you said, rather than seeing these things as late as you said, the Mayday request came at first and changed the direction of the parts for the runway according to the Mayday request and probably the parts landing. So it seems that he contacted me after that in such a situation where landing takes place. That's why it's a pre-announced, sufficiently prepared landing, this emergency landing. For example, in the case of a fuselage landing due to an abnormality, most of the other cases minimize the risk by trying to land the fuselage after the safety requirements have been confirmed on the ground, but this was not the case. So it was probably impossible to prepare these parts in advance, but in terms of time, the control of this plane and these parts were much more important, so it would be a little difficult to say that this part was late.

[Anchor]
Since it's flying at a great speed, emergency landing of an aircraft poses a considerable risk. This can often happen, and in this case, passengers on board, of course, seem to be wearing their belts, so what kind of posture should I remember in preparation for the possibility of fire or impact?

[Lee Young-joo]
Basically, in the process of making an emergency landing when the situation occurred, the announcement was probably made through an emergency broadcast.
And if you listen to the survivors, they know that a bird strike has already occurred. If you look at the text messages with your family in the text conversion, you know the situation of the bird strike. These parts were probably announced through the in-flight broadcast, and of course, the seat belt was worn again. In addition, the use of an oxygen mask in an emergency and a safe posture would have been guided by these positions, where you are crouching with your knees together.

However, safety within the normal range will be guaranteed to some extent.Ma is a posture or behavioral method that is difficult to determine 100% safety in such a strong impact or exceptional situation. Unfortunately, it would have been difficult for people to act because the fuselage landing occurred in the process, leading to the first shock, and the process of slipping again. And because the collision immediately led to the fire, it would be even more regrettable in a way that the people who were inside were not in a situation where they could take any action or action.

[Anchor]
It would be a very limited situation, but isn't it possible to cause casualties due to toxic gases in case of a fire? Is there any way to prepare inside?

[Lee Young-joo]
In fact, when a fire occurs on the plane, most of the fires are extinguished in the first place, so the risk of toxic gases and these parts will not have that much of an impact. When a fire breaks out in a building, it is surprisingly quickly detected in a crowded space. The risk of toxic gases or things like this will not be relatively high because they will be contained quickly if they are known quickly.

However, it is very important to evacuate quickly because there is a risk of fire explosion when a fire breaks out on an airplane, an external fire, or a crash occurs. However, the problem is that if the structure of the plane itself is very narrow with seats and many people flock to one corridor at the same time, there are actually cases where people died in it because they could not evacuate even though they could if they had enough time to keep order. In the mid-80s, there were cases where a plane fire broke out in the UK, and the people in there died because they couldn't get out, but when the investigation committee looked at these things later, there were questions.

There was enough time to evacuate after the plane landed, but I couldn't evacuate and all of them died later, and people in this situation did not follow order and rushed to the exit to get out quickly because of this stay. So what I want to say is that in an emergency situation, if you keep order and evacuate according to the crew's guidance and behavior instructed by the crew, you can evacuate if you have enough time. Of course, in the case of this accident, the attempt to evacuate was made so quickly that it was impossible to do so, but I would like to tell you that the best way is to maintain order and actively respond according to the crew's guidance when evacuating from other planes.

[Anchor]
Anyway, some people raise this regret when the aircraft makes an emergency landing this time. There is also talk about what it would have been like to apply materials that could slow down or cool flames at the same time.

[Lee Young-joo]
However, as I said, it is impossible to put out a fire when an explosion occurs or the fire is too strong. In this case, it is not possible to suppress something by chasing the moving object while already slipping and moving. Realistically, it's difficult, so in a way, these things can be technically developed in the future.Ma is quite an unrealistic part of the current technology or various suppression methods, I would say.

[Anchor]
Two survivors have now been rescued. I'm also worried about their health, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I left a question about what happened. I lost my memory for a while because the impact was significant at the time of the accident, can I see it like this?

[Lee Young-joo]
You might think you lost your memory. On the other hand, in the accident situation, I was conscious and lost consciousness due to strong shocks or things, so I couldn't remember the parts about the scene. When I wake up later in that state, I think I asked you these things because I was curious about the parts after the situation before I lost consciousness. However, as I said, I don't think you two have seen the accident in person.

Because I lost consciousness, after I was rescued. But if you check the situation again while watching the show or watching various materials, you may be shocked, and as a survivor, there are many cases where you actually experience your own guilt and things like that. So, I think the health aspects of these people should be observed and protected by paying close attention to not only external aspects, trauma, psychological stability, and various atmospheres.

[Anchor]
Lastly, I'll go over this part and wrap it up. First of all, there were announcements that it would take time to restore flight recorders, voice recorders, and many damaged parts, but anyway, we need to find out the cause carefully to prevent similar accidents. What areas do you think we should check particularly carefully?

[Lee Young-joo]
Basically, as you said, even if the appearance of the black box is partially damaged, the parts of whether the stores recorded inside are properly restored through factual analysis. Because heat resistance, durability, and impact resistance are sufficiently secured equipment. However, it may take a little longer. However, the important thing in this process is various risk factors and risk factors that we talked about earlier. It is necessary for us to take a close look at what risk factors have occurred and whether various measures have been appropriate after such risk factors have occurred.

On the other hand, even if various systems, like the landing gear, were not in operation, even if they weren't air-frame defects or maintenance defects, they would not be able to completely rule out the appearance of the technologies that would make it safer in these situations, and the safety measures of the current runway and the various facilities around it.In a way, there are some things that can't be helped by having an accident that didn't happen.
Because we didn't know. However, the fact that an accident has already occurred and the same accident occurs means that we have not prepared properly. So I think it is necessary to carefully analyze the information needed to come up with these measures to eliminate more risk factors and secure more safety through these accidents.

[Anchor]
It was a sad disaster, but I think we should put our heart and soul into preparing double or triple safety devices this time. This has been Lee Young-joo, a professor of fire and disaster prevention at Kyungil University. Thank you.