On December 30, family members of those who perished in the Jeju Air disaster grieve at Muan International Airport.
Jeju Air Crash
As the families of those who died in Jeju Air Crash over the weekend awaited the identification of their loved ones, Monday’s departure hall at an airport in southwestern South Korea was filled with the sounds of prayers, grief, and tears.
A Jeju Air plane carrying 175 passengers and six crew members crashed at the Muan County airport just after 9 a.m. local time on Sunday. The crash killed all but two individuals on board. This is the deadliest aviation accident the nation has witnessed in almost 30 years.
Inside Muan International Airport, family members and friends sobbed as medical personnel revealed the identities of the 141 confirmed victims. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, authorities are now identifying the remaining 28 bodies through DNA testing.
Families huddled together in the tall atrium, quietly whispering their private prayers. Before this, they usually use the atrium as the airport’s departure hall. Some people hugged each other and cried, while a few monks chatted with the groups that had gathered. Rows of yellow tents stood erected for people who had stayed overnight. Several relatives were yelling at the officials, asking for more information.
Investigators are attempting to determine the reason for the accident of Jeju Air flight 7C 2216. The flight was traveling from Bangkok to Muan. Local officials have speculated that a bird strike may have occurred before the incident.
An investigation of Jeju Air Crash is in progress.
Several South Korean news sites aired footage of the crash on Sunday. However, it was not possible to see the front or rear landing gear. The Boeing 737-800 was captured on camera sliding quickly on its belly. It then collided with an earthen slope and exploded in a fireball.
Experts told CNN that the undercarriage of the aircraft did not seem to have fully deployed. This was according to the experts who spoke to CNN. However, it is still unknown what led to this deployment failure, which specialists claimed was quite uncommon.
The transport ministry said that they found two black boxes, the voice recorders and flight data, at the crash site. The flight recorder needed to be transported to an analysis center in Seoul. The center determined the amount of information recoverable. It then decided whether to send the flight recorder to the United States.
An investigative team from the United States is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). To help South Korean authorities, the team consists of representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing. The NTSB stated that South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board will make any information public.
The transport ministry of South Korea claims the control tower instructed the pilot to alter course and land in the opposite direction to prevent a bird strike. They did this to avoid a possible bird strike. The pilot followed the orders.
The pilot sent a mayday call to the tower approximately one minute later. The ministry said the landing attempt happened approximately two minutes after the mayday call.
Since taking over the role in 2019, the flight’s chief pilot of has accumulated almost 6,800 hours of flight time.
According to the ministry, the flight’s chief pilot has been in the position since 2019. He had flown roughly 6,800 hours.
Choi Sang-mok, the acting president of South Korea, ordered a probe into the nation’s entire airline system. He also proclaimed seven days of national mourning.
At a disaster control conference in Seoul, Choi said they would share the investigation’s progress openly, even before the final results came out. He also committed to keeping the families of the deceased informed.
A day prior, Choi, who is also the nation’s finance minister, had visited the crash site. He declared it a special disaster area while offering his “sincere condolences” to the victims’ families.
The tragedy occurred just two days after Prime Minister Han Duck-soo took over his post. Parliament impeached former President Yoon Suk-yeol. He got suspended from office after he briefly ordered martial law earlier this month.
As is customary for the prime minister, Choi is in charge of the centralized disaster control team.
The Transport Ministry says that they’ve mobilized more than 700 police, military, and coast guard personnel to take action on-site.
A Reuters video showed mourners placing flowers and candles at a public memorial altar in Muan. The authorities set up the altar to honor the crash victims.
“She was nearly at home.”
The South Jeolla Fire Service says that 84 men, 85 women, and 10 people whose gender they couldn’t figure out were among the victims of the crash on Sunday. According to the rescue squad, the two survivors were both crew members—one guy and one woman.
The South Korean transport ministry reported that two Thai nationals were among the passengers. Every other traveler was from South Korea.
“I never imagined that this would be the last time we would see each other forever,” Boonchuay Duangmanee, the father of one of the Thai victims, told the Associated Press.
He told the AP that his daughter, Jongluk, had years of experience working at a South Korean firm. Before boarding the Bangkok to Muan flight, she had been in Thailand visiting relatives.
The jet detonated in Korea this morning, I was told. However, he stated, “I had no idea that my daughter would be traveling on this flight.”
He had not heard from his daughter before the collision, another father who lost her told Reuters.
Jeon Je-Young, 71, said his daughter Jeon Mi-Sook did not feel the need to call because she was almost home.
She believed she was returning home. He assumed the plane had crashed. He said that by the time she finally tried to reach out to him, the damage was already done.
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