South Korean officials said Monday they will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 planes operated by the country's airlines, as they struggle to determine what caused a plane crash that killed 179 people the day before.
Sunday's crash, the country's worst air disaster in decades, sparked widespread national solidarity. Many people are concerned about how effectively the South Korean government will handle the disaster as it grapples with a leadership vacuum following the recent successive ousters of President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the two top officials. of the country, amid the political tumult caused by Yoon's presidency. brief imposition of martial law earlier this month.
The new acting president, Choi Sang-mok, chaired a working group meeting on the accident on Monday and instructed authorities to conduct an emergency review of the country's aircraft operating systems.
“The essence of a responsible response would be to revamp aviation security systems as a whole to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents and build a safer Republic of South Korea,” said Choi, who is also vice prime minister and finance minister. .
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by South Korean airline Jeju Air aborted its first landing attempt for reasons that are not immediately clear. Then, during his second landing attempt, he received a bird strike warning from the ground control center before his pilot issued a distress signal. The plane landed without the front landing gear deployed, skidded off the runway, crashed into a concrete fence and exploded in a fireball.
Alan Price, former Delta Air Lines chief pilot and now a consultant, said the Boeing 737-800 is a “proven aircraft” that is in a different class of plane than the Boeing 737 Max that was linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. .
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But South Korea's Transportation Ministry said Monday it plans to conduct safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes operated by the country's airlines, as well as a broader review of safety standards at Jeju Air, which operates 39 of those planes. A senior ministry official, Joo Jong-wan, said representatives from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing were expected to arrive in South Korea on Monday to take part in the investigation.
Ministry officials also said they will investigate whether Muan airport's localizer – a concrete fence that houses an array of antennas designed to guide planes safely during landings – should have been made from lighter materials that would break. more easily in case of impact.
Joo said the ministry has determined that there are similar concrete structures at other domestic airports, including on Jeju Island and the southern cities of Yeosu and Pohang, as well as airports in the United States, Spain and South Africa.
Video of the accident indicated that the pilots did not deploy flaps or slats to brake the aircraft, suggesting a possible hydraulic failure, and did not manually lower the landing gear, suggesting they did not have time, said John Cox, a retired pilot from an airline and Executive Director of Safety Operational Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Despite that, the plane was under control and traveling in a straight line, and damage and injuries likely would have been minimized if not for the barrier being so close to the runway, Cox said.
Other observers said videos showed the plane suffering from a suspected engine problem, but landing gear malfunctions were likely a direct reason for the crash. They said there would likely be no link between the landing gear problem and the suspected engine problem.
Earlier Monday, another Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by Jeju Air returned to Seoul Gimpo International Airport shortly after takeoff when the pilot detected a landing gear problem. Song Kyung-hoon, an executive at Jeju Air, said the issue was resolved by communicating with a ground equipment center, but the pilot decided to return to Gimpo as a precaution.
Joo said officials were checking whether there may have been communication problems between air traffic controllers and the pilot. “Our current understanding is that, at some point during the round-trip process, communication became somewhat ineffective or was interrupted, prior to landing and impact,” he said.
Ministry officials said Monday that the plane's flight data and cockpit audio recorders were moved to a research center at Gimpo airport before analysis. Ministry officials previously said it would take months to complete the accident investigation.
The Muan crash is the deadliest aviation disaster in South Korea since 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.
The accident left many South Koreans shocked and ashamed, and the government announced a seven-day national mourning period until January 4. Some questioned whether the accident involved regulatory or safety issues, such as a 2022 Halloween crush in Seoul that killed 160 people and the 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 people.
The Transportation Ministry said authorities have identified 146 bodies and are collecting DNA samples and fingerprints from the other 33.
Park Han Shin, a representative of the bereaved families, said they were told the bodies were so damaged that officials need time before returning them to their families.
“I demand that the government mobilize more personnel to return our brothers and relatives as intact as possible and as quickly as possible,” she said, through tears.
The accident was even bigger news for South Koreans already reeling from a political crisis triggered by Yoon's martial law decree, which brought hundreds of troops to the streets of Seoul and revived traumatic memories of past military rule in the 1970s and 1980s.
The political tumult prompted the opposition-controlled National Assembly to impeach Yoon and Han. The security minister resigned and the police chief was arrested for his role in enforcing martial law.
The absence of senior officials responsible for disaster management has raised concerns.
“We are deeply concerned that the Security and Disaster Countermeasures Headquarters can really handle the disaster,” the JoongAng Ilbo mass-circulation newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.
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