After Deadly Plane Crash: South Korean Interim President Orders Investigation into Aviation Safety
South Korea’s interim president Choi Sang-mok on Monday ordered a safety inspection of the country’s entire aviation system as investigators try to identify victims and determine what caused the plane crash, which killed 175 passengers and four crew members.
Interim President Choi Mok said the top priority now is to identify the victims, support their families, and care for the two survivors. However, once all the victims have been identified, “the Ministry of Transport is requested to conduct a safety inspection of the entire aircraft control system,” the president hopes, to prevent another plane crash.
The South Korean Ministry of Transportation has announced its plans to conduct “special inspections” on all 101 Boeing 737-800 aircraft currently operating in South Korea.
On Sunday, a Jeju Air Boeing 737-8AS passenger plane with 181 people on board crashed and burst into flames at Muan Airport. There were problems with the landing gear, after which an emergency landing failed. 179 people on board died. It was the deadliest plane crash in South Korea’s history. Only two of the six crew members survived.
How the accident could have happened is still unclear. There were already suspicions that the aircraft had come into contact with birds. The Ministry of Transport confirms that the pilots reported this shortly before landing in an emergency call to air traffic control. The collision may have caused problems with the landing gear. This was not extended when landing at Muan airport.
Rescue workers found the black boxes that store flight data and cockpit audio recordings. One of the black boxes is said to be damaged on the outside, but it is unclear whether this would make it difficult to read the data.
The remains of 141 of the 179 fatalities in the plane crash at South Korea’s Muan airport have been identified. All bodies have been transferred to a temporary morgue. The families of the victims will be informed once autopsies are completed, the ministry said at a news conference.
Another incident
The day after the deadly plane crash, a plane from the same airline had to return to its departure airport in South Korea after takeoff, again due to a problem with the landing gear. The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported this.
It was a flight from Gimpo International Airport near the capital, Seoul, to Jeju, which departed at 6:37 local time with a Boeing 737-800—the same type of aircraft as the one involved in the plane crash on Sunday. The defect was discovered shortly after takeoff on Monday morning, after which the flight turned around at 7:25 local time. There were 161 passengers on board. They will be taken to their destination by another aircraft.