They had little time to react.
The morning of December 29th Jeju water Flight 2216 crashed while landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea after departing from Bangkok, Thailand.
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In chilling text messages sent minutes before the crash, a passenger noted that the plane had suffered a bird strike.
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Hours after the accident, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport confirmed”The control tower sent a bird strike warning before landing. The pilot declared Mayday a minute later.“
“Mayday” is a distress signal used when facing a life-threatening emergency. An aircraft that has declared Mayday receives immediate assistance and priority over other regular aircraft.
The ministry further revealed that while the exact figure is yet to be confirmed by investigations, the time between the distress signal and landing is believed to be around two minutes.
Authorities have secured the flight data recorder for investigation.