Another Boeing plane has reportedly faced landing gear problems following a fatal plane crash on Sunday.
Yesterday (December 29), a Jeju Air flight carrying almost 200 people crashed and killed 179 of its passengers.
The harrowing incident has since been branded as South Korea's worst ever aviation disaster after the aircraft crash-landed at Muan International Airport at 9:03am.
Pilots had to abort the first landing attempt for unknown reasons, when it received a bird strike warning during the second try from the ground control centre before its pilot issued a distress signal, according to the transport ministry.
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The plane, a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet, landed without its front landing gear deployed, overshot the runway, slammed into a concrete fence and burst into a fireball.
Only two people, who were crew members on the plane, have survived the ordeal, with an investigation into the exact cause of the crash still underway.
Now there are reports that another Boeing plane has been forced to turn around today (December 30) because of landing gear issues.
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As per The Economic Times, Jeju Air Flight 7C101 set off from Seoul's Gimpo International Airport around 6:37am and had to land back at the same airport less than an hour later.
Song Kyung-hoon, head of the management support office at Jeju Air, said in a news conference: "Shortly after takeoff, a signal indicating a landing gear issue was detected on the aircraft's monitoring system.
"At 6:57am, the captain communicated with ground control, and after taking additional measures, the landing gear returned to normal operation.
"However, the decision was made to return to the airport for a thorough inspection of the aircraft."
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Ahead of this morning's incident, South Korean officials said they're conducting safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines.
Acting president Choi Sang-mok, who has only been in the position since Friday (December 27), presided over a task force meeting on the crash and instructed authorities to conduct an emergency review of the country’s aircraft operation systems.
"The essence of a responsible response would be renovating the aviation safety systems on the whole to prevent recurrences of similar incidents and building a safer Republic of South Korea," said Mr Choi, who is also deputy prime minister and finance minister.
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While the cause of the fatal crash is yet to be determined, David Learmount, who is the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine and an aviation expert, said that more people would have survived if the concrete wall by the runway hadn't been there.
"Not only is there no justification [for the wall to be there], I think it's verging on criminal to have it there," Learmount told Sky News.
"That kind of structure should not be there. That is awful. That is unbelievably awful."
Topics: Jeju Air, News, World News, Korea, Travel
Niamh Shackleton