Air safety expert David Learmount said the tragedy did not happen because of the fault of the landing gear, but because of a concrete structure near the runway.
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00:00Leading aviation expert reveals shocking cause of 179 deaths of the South Korea plane crash.
00:08David Learmount said the tragedy did not happen because of the fault of the landing gear but
00:13because of a concrete structure next to the runway.
00:18I'm pretty shocked actually because whatever happened to the airplane which meant that
00:23the pilot couldn't get the flaps and gear down for the landing was not actually what
00:29caused the death of the passengers. The passengers were killed by hitting a solid structure
00:36just over the end of the runway where a solid structure should not be.
00:41That concrete structure contained the landing system antennas which are used to guide the
00:47aircraft to the runway at night or in bad weather. Those antennas are normally just
00:52stuck in the ground, he says, meaning the tragedy could have been prevented.
00:59He had to land particularly fast, that's why the aircraft went over the end of the runway.
01:04That's why, because aircraft occasionally will go over the end, you don't put solid
01:09structures immediately in the overrun.
01:13Officials said they will look into whether the airport's landing system antennas should
01:17have been encased with lighter materials that would break more easily on impact. Similar
01:23concrete structures have been found in other domestic airports as well as in the United
01:28States, Spain and South Africa, authorities reported. The aircraft operated 13 flights
01:34in 48 hours before it crashed.