South Korea. Duck Remains Detected In Engines Of Exploded Plane

The report does not give any indication as to what could have led the plane to land on the runway without the landing gear open.

The two engines of the Jeju Air plane that crashed in South Korea last month contained duck remains, according to a preliminary report by South Korean authorities released Monday.

According to Reuters, the six-page report reveals that both engines of the Boeing 737-800 contained DNA from Baikal ducks, a type of migratory duck that flies to South Korea during the winter in large flocks.

Remembering that the plane, coming from Bangkok, overshot the runway at Muan airport when making an emergency landing on its belly and hit a wall, ending up exploding.

The report states that the pilots noticed a flock and the plane "made an emergency declaration for a bird strike during a diversion maneuver," shortly after air traffic controllers warned of possible bird strikes.

However, the black boxes stopped recording shortly before the pilots declared the emergency - and about four minutes before impact.

The report also outlines the next steps in the investigation, noting that the engines will be dismantled, components will be examined in depth, flight and air traffic control data, localizers and evidence of bird strikes will be analyzed.

"These exhaustive investigation activities are aimed at determining the exact cause of the accident," the report says.

The accident, which two people survived, caused 179 deaths, becoming the worst civil aviation disaster ever on South Korean soil and the worst in 2024 in the world.