- Pilots reported a bird strike before approaching the fatal airport.
- 179 people died in Jeju air crash, two survived from the wreckage.
- An investigation looking at bird strikes and weather as factors.
South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-muk on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations system as investigators worked to identify the victims and determine what caused the country’s deadliest air disaster. What is the reason for
All 175 passengers and four out of six crew were killed when a Jeju Boeing 737-800 skidded off the end of the runway at Bayland and Moan International Airport, hit a wall and burst into flames. Two crew members were rescued alive.
Choi told a disaster management meeting in Seoul that the top priority now is to identify the victims, help their families and treat the two survivors.
“Even before the final results are out, we demand the authorities to make the accident investigation process transparent and inform the bereaved families immediately,” he said.
“As soon as the accident is recovered, the Ministry of Transport is requested to conduct an emergency safety inspection of the entire aircraft operation system to prevent the recurrence of aircraft accidents,” he said.
The transport ministry said authorities are considering whether to conduct special inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800s operated by South Korean Airlines.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital of Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was attempting to land at the airport in the south of the country shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday.
Fire officials have said investigators are looking into bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors in the crash. Many questions remain, experts say, including why the plane, powered by two CFM 56-7B26 engines, appeared to be traveling so fast and landed when it skidded off the runway and crashed into a wall. Why didn’t the gear show up?
CFM International is a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France’s Saffron.
On Monday, transport ministry officials said that when the pilots took a scheduled approach, they told air traffic control that the plane had suffered a bird strike, shortly after the control tower alerted them to it. Warning that birds have been seen in the vicinity.
The pilots then declared May Day and signaled their intention to go around shortly before the aircraft descended into a belly landing on the runway and struck a structure at the end of the runway.
Authorities are investigating what role the localizer antenna at the end of the runway to assist landing, including the embankment it was resting on, played a role in the crash, transport ministry officials said at a media briefing.
The accident killed mostly local residents who were returning from a holiday in Thailand, while two Thai nationals were also killed.
On Monday morning, investigators were trying to identify some of the last remaining victims, as grieving families waited inside the Moan airport terminal.
Park Han Shin, who lost his brother in the crash, said he was told by authorities that his brother had been identified but that he had not been identified. Could not see the dead body.
Citing a ferry sinking in 2014 that killed more than 300 people, Park appealed to families of other victims to unite in response to the disaster and recovery efforts. After the disaster, long efforts were made to identify the victims and the cause of the sinking.
Emergency workers were sifting through the wreckage, which was almost completely destroyed when the plane went down in an explosion of flames and debris at a regional airport near the country’s western coastline.
Transport Ministry officials said the jet’s flight data recorder had been recovered but appeared to have suffered some external damage and it was not yet clear whether the data was intact enough to be analysed. is maintained.
Moan Airport remains closed until Wednesday, but the rest of the country’s international and regional airports, including Man Incheon International Airport, were operating as scheduled.
Shares of Jeju Air hit a record low on Monday, trading as much as 15.7% lower.
Under international aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States, where the plane was designed and built.
The NTSB said it was leading a team of US investigators to assist South Korea’s aviation authority. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration were also participating.
Choi, who had been overseeing recovery efforts and investigations, became acting leader just three days ago after the impeachment of the country’s president and prime minister over the imposition of a short-lived martial law.