At 8:59:25 a.m., the Jeju Air passenger plane appears in the footage.

It is presumed to be the moment when, after the control tower warned, “Be aware of bird activity,” the pilot declared the emergency term “Mayday” three times.

[Prof. Kwon Bo-heon / Far East University Department of Aviation Safety Management: “‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,’ and ‘Bird strike, bird strike.’ In such cases, the aircraft should climb in this posture. It should be ascending, but this video, though small, shows it almost level. If it’s flying level, it means there’s no thrust.”]

After the Mayday declaration, the plane aborted its landing and attempted a go-around. To re-approach the runway, the altitude should have been raised to 5,000 feet.

However, for some reason, the aircraft struggled to ascend.

Black smoke appeared to emerge from the engine area.

[Prof. Kwon Bo-heon / Far East University Department of Aviation Safety Management: “A go-around procedure involves using maximum power, so the aircraft should ascend. However, it couldn’t climb at all. You can see the altitude decreasing from this point. It lost more power, leading the captain to decide, ‘We can’t make it,’ and then turning back.”]

Experts suspect that a bird strike had already rendered both engines abnormal.

[Prof. Kwon Bo-heon / Far East University Department of Aviation Safety Management: “An aircraft can climb even with one engine. With one engine, it can at least maintain a minimal ascent or level flight. But in this case, both engines seemed to have started malfunctioning.”]

The aircraft then appears to have abandoned further attempts to ascend.

Instead of following the usual go-around route, it turned left and then made a sharp 180-degree clockwise turn.

[Prof. Kwon Bo-heon / Far East University Department of Aviation Safety Management: “The aircraft couldn’t climb and was already descending, then turned slightly to the left. It seems the pilot decided to attempt an immediate landing at the runway from this point.”]

About a minute later, the control tower gave landing clearance, and the aircraft attempted a belly landing.

At 9:03 a.m., tragically, the passenger plane collided with a concrete embankment at the end of the runway.