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Comment by pixelesque | Hacker News Reader

Firstly, this airport has only been taking international flights since the early December.

There was also construction work going on at one end of the runway (until March), and the threshold was pushed back 300 metres, shortening the runway by that much:

http://aim.koca.go.kr/eaipPub/Package/2024-10-31-AIRAC/html/...

The runway also is not flat (which is why the localiser beams at that end need to be raised in the first place to intercept the correct glideslope angle).

As the OP mentioned, trying this (a very fast landing, with no gear or flaps, spoilers) at many airports around the world on such a short runway (albeit one which with gear and flaps down is long enough for normal landings with the required 240 m runoff areas), is not going to work well.

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Very good point regarding international flights.

Of course, I'm making the assumption that the pilots somehow had to attempt a "a very fast landing, with no gear or flaps, spoilers". The core of the issue is probably there, hopefully the investigation will yield useful results.

But what I am fundamentally questioning is whether the pilots would have attempted that landing if they had been expecting a piece of reinforced concrete at the end of the runway.

To say it differently, it's not the existence of deadly obstacles near an airport that bothers me (after all, some runways are quite literally in the middle of cities), but the fact that the pilots could have reasonably not know about them. That, for me, is a pretty big issue.

There were plenty of concrete structures nearby when US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson river: notice the pilot aimed for a path where there weren't any. Maybe that Jeju air pilot could have attempted something similar. Maybe not. But the absurd nature of that deadly piece of reinforced concrete probably didn't help making a good decision.

In most airports you can expect highways, buildings, water and other structures after the runoff area.

The airport where it happened doesn’t appear to have any less clearance than usual around the runway [1], if not more when comparing to Jeju Airport for example [2].

[1] https://maps.apple.com/?ll=34.976342,126.382712&q=Marked%20L...

[2] https://maps.apple.com/?ll=33.515456,126.498733&q=Marked%20L...

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