MUAN COUNTY: South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation as investigators worked to identify victims and find out what caused the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil.

All 175 passengers and four of the six crew were killed when a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway at Muan International Airport, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall. Two crew members were pulled out alive.

The top priority for now is identifying the victims, supporting their families and treating the two survivors, Choi told a disaster management meeting in Seoul.

“Even before the final results are out, we ask that officials transparently disclose the accident investigation process and promptly inform the bereaved families,” he said.

Cries of anguish echo through airport lounge as desperate families wait for identification of victims

“As soon as the accident recovery is conducted, the transport ministry is requested to conduct an emergency safety inspection of the entire aircraft operation system to prevent recurrence of aircraft accidents,” he said.

As a first step, the transport ministry announced plans to conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by South Korean airliners beginning on Monday, focusing on the maintenance record of key components.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok, was trying to land shortly after 9am (0000 GMT) on Sunday at the airport in the south of the country.

Investigators are examining bird strikes, whether any of the aircraft’s control systems were disabled, and the apparent rush by the pilots to attempt a landing soon after declaring an emergency as possible factors in the crash, fire and transportation officials have said.

Experts say many questions remain, including why the plane, powered by two CFM 56-7B26 engines, appeared to be travelling so fast and why its landing gear did not appear to be down when it skidded down the runway and into a concrete embankment. CFM International is a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.

On Monday, transport ministry officials said as the pilots made a scheduled approach, they told air traffic control that the aircraft had suffered a bird strike, shortly after the control tower gave them a warning birds were spotted in the vicinity.

The pilots then issued a Mayday warning and signalled their intention to abandon the landing and to go around and try again. Shortly afterwards, the aircraft came down on the runway in a belly landing, touching down about 1,200 metres (1,310 yards) along the 2,800-metre runway and sliding into the embankment at the end of the landing strip.

Cries of anguish

On Monday morning, investigators were trying to identify some of the more than two dozen remaining victims, as anguished families waited inside the Muan airport terminal.

Cries of anguish echoed through a lounge at Muan International Airport as families waited for news of relatives killed in the plane crash. Grieving families are increasingly desperate — and angry — as they wait for formal identification of the remains of their loved ones, hoping to hold funerals and properly mourn.

“I apologise deeply… but the extent of the damage to the bodies is profound,” an official told families at a briefing on Monday, trying to explain the immense hurdles facing workers trying to recover remains while also preserving crash-site evidence.

“There are many cases in which arms and legs have been severed,” he said, his words causing cries of shock and horror among the waiting families.

Using finger prints and DNA analysis, authorities have identified 146 of the victims, and are working hard on the 33 still to be verified.

Soldiers were still combing through wetlands near the airport — apparently looking for body parts — and an AFP reporter saw blood-stained seats and splatters of human remains on the ground near the wreckage.

Park Han-shin, who lost his brother in the crash, said he was told by authorities that his brother had been identified but has not been able to see his body.

Park called on victims’ families to unite in responding to the disaster, citing a 2014 ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people. Many relatives of the victims of the Sewol ferry disaster complained it took authorities too long to identify those killed and the cause of that accident.

Transportation ministry officials said the jet’s flight data recorder was recovered but appeared to have sustained some damage on the outside and it was not yet clear whether the data was sufficiently intact to be analysed.

The recorder has been transported to Seoul and an analysis will begin when a team of US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing officials arrive in the country late on Monday, the officials told reporters.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2024