Pilots Switched Off Wrong Engine In South Korea Crash That Killed 179

The pilots of the South Korean airliner that crashed and killed 179 people mistakenly switched off the wrong engine, a report has revealed.

Jeju Air Flight 2216 hit the ground at a dangerously high speed without its landing gear lowered and exploded after colliding with an embankment at the end of the runway. I Photo: 자연속으로 into nature

The Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) found that the right engine of the Jeju Air Boeing 737 stopped working after the plane collided with a flock of ducks, but the left engine continued to produce power, Allegra Mendelson reported for The Telegraph.

However, instead of turning off the damaged engine, the pilots cut power to the one that was still operational, leaving the plane without any functioning engines. Investigators stated: “A pilot may have mistakenly turned off the engine.”

The cockpit voice recorder captured the pilot saying, “Shut down engine number two,” but flight data showed that the pilots instead switched off engine number one—likely in error due to the pressure of the situation.

The South Korean plane, which crashed on December 29, 2024, hit the ground at dangerously high speed without its landing gear lowered and exploded after colliding with an embankment at the end of the runway.

An official told South Korea’s MBN television news: “The pilot should have turned off the right engine, which was severely damaged by the bird strike, but he turned off the left engine, which was still spinning—and then the black box and power went out.”

The pilots had also activated the left engine’s fire extinguisher, which made it impossible to restart the engine mid-flight, the report said.

News of the pilots’ error in the Jeju Air crash comes less than a week after it was revealed that the fatal Air India crash in June—which killed all but one of the 242 passengers on board—was also caused by pilot error, after the captain cut off the aircraft’s fuel supply.