How two crew members in deadly South Korea plane crash survived

Two crew members may have survived the Jeju Air plane crash in South Korea by sitting backwards with a harness on in the safest part of the cabin, according to aviation experts.

On Sunday, a Boeing 737-800 belly-landed and slid down the runway at Muan International Airport before colliding with a building beyond the Tarmac and erupting into flames. Of the 181 people on board, 179 were dead.

A police forensics department examines parts of the wreckage of the crash at Muan International Airport.

Yonhap/AFP

The two surviving flight attendants, who were apparently seated in the rear portion of the aircraft that separated in the crash, were recovered from the plane's tail, which was upside down as shown in images.

The chief of the Muan fire department, Lee Jung-hyun, said that "only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of [the plane] looks almost impossible to recognise."

It documents the survival of two crew members in the tail of an aircraft that crashed in Kazakhstan last week, killing the majority of its passengers and crew.

Experts suggest that the crew members' positions within the South Korean aircraft, as well as their wearing a four-point harness, may have saved their lives.

Lee Mo, 33, was in charge of passenger service at the back of the jet, according to local media, and sustained a fractured left shoulder and brain injuries before waking up disoriented in the intensive care unit at Ewha Womans University Hospital in Seoul.

He continually inquired, "What happened?" According to The Korea Times, he said, "Why am I here?" before recalled wearing his seat belt before to the collision.

According to Ju Woong, head of Ewha Womans University Hospital, Lee was "fully able to communicate" and there was "no indication yet of memory loss or such," but the flight attendant was being treated with extreme care due to the likelihood of full-body paralysis.

Another crew member, Koo, 25, who was only identified by her surname, was reportedly rushed to Asan Medical Center in Seoul with a scalp laceration, fractured ankle, and stomach ache.

She reportedly stated in her initial remarks that "smoke came out of one of the plane's engines and then it exploded."

Officials say the accident occurred after the jet was hit by birds about 9 a.m. local time (midnight GMT).

According to Jay Robert, a former senior cabin crew member for Emirates, staff at the back of a Boeing 737-800 conventionally sit in backward-facing seats and wear a harness.

"The 737-800s I've been on all have seats facing backwards at the rear," he told The Telegraph, adding: "It's a better position for impact and you wear a four-point hardness."

"The airplane usually breaks apart on impact and passengers in the rear tend to have a better chance of survival."

Shem Malmquist, an aviation safety and accident investigator, pilot, and aeronautics professor at Florida Institute of Technology, said that both the harness and backward-facing seats would have increased the chances of survival.

"They definitely would have been wearing harnesses, that would possibly have helped, and if they were sitting backwards that would keep them somewhat safer," he told British newspaper The Telegraph.

Mr Malmquist, who has flown Boeing 777s for nearly 35 years, stated that harnesses would not necessarily increase safety in the majority of incidents, and that their use would be determined by return on investment.

"It would be safer, but people don't like to wear harnesses, and of course there is the cost," he said, adding that airlines would be hesitant to accept changes to seats and seat belts due to the increased weight, which would increase fuel usage.

According to a 1952 report by Naval Aviation News, passengers in transport planes were 10 times more likely to survive a crash in a backward-facing seat, while Richard Snyder, a scientist at the University of Michigan, concluded in a 1983 paper that "data appears to overwhelmingly substantiate that the seated occupant can tolerate much higher crash forces when oriented in the rearward-facing position."

Mr Malmquist said: "It should be looked into. Nobody is discussing this. There is a lot we can accomplish that is mostly unexplored."

On Christmas Day, two crew members escaped when an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 crashed in Kazakhstan after reportedly being hit by a Russian ground-to-air missile, killing 38 people.

Zulfugar Asadov and Aidan Rahimli were stationed in the back of the jet when it separated, leaving the tail intact while the front caught fire.

"In these two crashes, the impact was from the front," said Mr Robert, adding that in South Korea, the crew in the back may have been protected from the explosion.

"I would assume it would have been a bit more protected than everyone else."

According to Time magazine's 2015 review of 35 years of data, the back of a commercial airplane is statistically the safest place to be in a crash.

The study discovered that passengers at the back of a plane had a 32% mortality rate, which increased to 38% at the front and 39% in the center. A plane's wings hold fuel, which might explode.

center seats near the back, which benefit from fellow passengers serving as buffers, had the best results (28%) compared to the poorest faring aisle seats in the center of the plane (44%).

Steven Green, a former Boeing 737-800 pilot from Vermont, said it was "no surprise" that those in the tail had a greater chance of survival because the region is "structurally very strong".

Mr Green, who flew commercial planes for over 40 years, believes there is a safety case for introducing harnesses and backward-facing seats to customers.

"From a safety standpoint, it makes sense," he told The Telegraph. He further explained: "The British tried rear-facing seats on Trident [jets] but nobody liked them, it doesn't feel right." FA