Experts have been unable to find the reason for the fatal airline disaster in South Korea.
There is no answer yet as to what went wrong with Jeju Air 2216, as experts remain puzzled by what caused the crash that killed 179 people.
Experts said that a bird striking the engine is unlikely to be the sole factor.
Reports had earlier claimed that the air traffic control tower at Muan issued a bird strike warning shortly before the incident.
A South Korean transport department official told the media the pilot had informed controllers that the plane had suffered a bird strike before declaring mayday.
The early theory was that the bird strike led to the failure of the engine that powered the landing gear, which in turn caused the fatal belly landing.
But Dr Sonya Brown, a senior lecturer in aerospace design at the University of New South Wales, is sceptical.
“A bird strike should be a survivable event. It should not lead to what we eventually saw, particularly because in any situation where one engine is non-functioning (as the footage suggests), there’s still plenty of power,” she said, according to the Guardian UK.
She insisted that bird strikes are so common that they are factored into the design of modern planes.
“It does seem like there’s more to this incident,” she said.
Also, Prof Doug Drury of Central Queensland University agrees the bird strike alone is unlikely to be the sole cause.
“A bird strike on one engine would not cause the complete failure of all the systems; you can fly a 737 on one engine,” said Drury, a veteran pilot.
