South Korean investigators reportedly found that he Boeing 737’s pilots may have cut off the wrong engine after a bird strike.

By Caleb Revill

A new briefing by South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) hinted that the pilots flying South Korea’s Jeju Air flight 2216 may have made human errors before the fatal crash.

The Boeing 737-800 veered off of a runway while landing at Muan International Airport on Dec. 29, 2024. All but two of the 181 people on the aircraft were killed in the crash.

According to an Associated Press report, investigative findings on the aircraft’s engines were intended to be discussed at a press conference on Saturday.

The conference was canceled, however, after relatives of crash victims were told about the findings earlier that day – prompting public backlash over a perceived shift of blame from government institutions to the pilots.

A copy of the unpublished report obtained by AP stated that a South Korean-led investigation team found no manufacturer defects with the 737’s engines, which were built by French aerospace company Safran and General Electric.

The report stated that investigations of the engines found that the aircraft’s right engine had serious internal damage due to a bird strike.

From the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, investigators deduced that the pilots switched off the aircraft’s left engine before the crash.

According to AP, the report didn’t state why the pilots shut off the less-damaged engine and “stopped short of saying whether it was an error by the pilots.”