A lawsuit has been filed in King County Superior Court in Washington state against Boeing on behalf of families of passengers killed in last year’s Jeju Air Flight 2216 crash in South Korea. The complaint alleges that outdated electrical and hydraulic systems aboard the Boeing 737-800 prevented pilots from safely landing the aircraft following a bird strike. The crash, which occurred on Dec. 29 at Muan International Airport, killed 179 of the 181 people on board and was the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in nearly three decades.
According to the complaint, the aircraft suffered a bird strike as it approached the runway, causing a “massive failure” of nearly all key flight systems, including AC power and battery backups. The document states that the left engine was shut down and the right engine’s thrust dropped to about 55 percent, forcing the pilots to attempt a go-around before executing a belly-landing that overshot the runway. The complaint also says that the aircraft’s landing gear, reverse thrusters and flight data recorders failed, leaving the crew without critical tools the complaint says were necessary to complete a safe landing.
Footage of the Airplane crash in South Korea. 181 people on board pic.twitter.com/h4LXd9cghx
— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) December 29, 2024
Charles Herrmann of Herrmann Law Group, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said the bird strike “triggered a cascade of system failures.”
In a recent statement, Herrmann criticized Boeing for “blaming the pilots.”
“Rather than admitting its fault in this tragic accident, Boeing resorts to its old, worn-out ‘blame the pilots’ tactic,” Hermann said. “These pilots make easy targets; they perished in the flames with the passengers. They cannot defend themselves.”
Boeing said in a prior statement that it remains in contact with Jeju Air and offered condolences to the victims’ families. The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial.
A cynical law suit. Even the dunbest of rocket scientists can see that after the bird strike the single key contributor was the decision to do a go-around rather than land immediately.
You are 100% correct, and to allow this lawsuit to continue is a crime.
It was a total cascade of pilot errors contributing to this tragedy and I’m sure if they could sue for the correct causes and the correct entities and find money in it then they would. Those pilots certainly had better initial chances of pilotage bringing a better outcome than had Sully Sullenberger.