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South Korean officials said Monday they will conduct security inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines, as they struggle to determine which caused a plane crash in which 179 people died a day earlier.
Sunday’s crash, the country’s worst aviation disaster in decades, prompted an outpouring of national sympathy. Many people are worried about how effectively the South Korean government will handle the disaster as it struggles with a leadership vacuum following the recent back-to-back impeachments of President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the country’s top two officials. amid political tumult caused by Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law earlier this month.
New acting President Choi Sang-mok presided over a task force meeting on the crash on Monday and ordered authorities to conduct an emergency review of the country’s aircraft operating systems.
“The essence of a responsible response would be to renovate the aviation security systems as a whole to prevent repetitions of similar incidents and build a safer Republic of South Korea,” said Choi, who is also deputy prime minister and minister of finance.
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air has aborted its first landing attempt for reasons that are not immediately clear. Then, during its second landing attempt, it received a bird strike warning from the ground control center before its pilot issued a distress signal. The plane landed without the front landing gear deployed, overshot the runway, hit a concrete fence and burst into a fireball.
Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines and now a consultant, said the Boeing 737-800 is a “proven aircraft” that belongs to a different class of aircraft than the Boeing 737 Max jetliner that has been linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
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But South Korea’s transport ministry said Monday it plans to conduct safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800 jetliners operated by the country’s airlines, as well as a broader review of safety standards at Jeju Air, which operates 39 of those planes. Senior ministry official Joo Jong-wan said representatives from the US 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 with a set of antennas designed to guide planes safely during landings – should be made with lighter materials that would break more easily during impact
Joo said the ministry has determined that there are similar concrete structures in other domestic airports, including in 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 crash indicated the pilots did not deploy flaps or slats to slow the plane, suggesting a possible hydraulic failure, and did not manually lower the landing gear, suggesting they ran out of time, John Cox said. a retired airline pilot and CEO of Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Despite that, the jetliner was under control and traveling in a straight line, and damage and injuries likely would have been minimal if not for the barrier so close to the runway, Cox said.
Other observers said the videos showed the plane was suffering from suspected engine problems, but the landing gear malfunction was likely a direct cause of the crash. They said there was unlikely to be a link between the landing gear problem and the suspected engine problem.
Earlier Monday, another Boeing 737-800 plane operated by Jeju Air returned to Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport shortly after takeoff, when the pilot discovered a landing gear problem. Song Kyung-hoon, a director of Jeju Air, said the problem was resolved through communication with a land-based equipment center, but the pilot decided to return to Gimpo as a precaution.
Joo said officials are looking into whether there may have been communication issues between air traffic controllers and the pilot. “Our current understanding is that at some point in the go-around process, communications became somewhat ineffective or were interrupted, prior to landing and impact,” he said.
Ministry officials said Monday that the plane’s flight data and cockpit audio recorders had been moved to a research center at Gimpo Airport ahead of their analysis. Ministry officials have previously said that it would take months to complete the investigation into the accident.
The Muan crash is South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster since 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.
The crash left many South Koreans shocked and ashamed, with the government announcing a seven-day national mourning period until January 4. Some questioned whether the accident involved safety or regulatory issues, such as a 2022 Halloween crush in Seoul that killed 160 people and a 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 people.
The Transport Ministry said authorities have identified 146 bodies and are collecting DNA and fingerprint samples from the other 33.
Park Han Shin, a representative of the injured families, said they were told that the bodies were so badly damaged that officials needed time before returning them to their families.
“I demand that the government mobilize more personnel to bring back our brothers and family members as intact as possible,” he said, breaking down in tears.
The crash was even more significant news for South Koreans already reeling from a political crisis triggered by Yoon’s martial law decree, which brought hundreds of troops into Seoul streets and brought back traumatic memories of previous military rule in the 1970s-80s. resurrected.
The political tumult resulted in the opposition-controlled National Assembly impeaching Yoon and Han. The security minister resigned and the police chief was arrested for their roles in the fighting.
The absence of top officials responsible for managing disasters has led to concerns.
“We are deeply concerned whether the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters can really handle the disaster,” the mass-circulation newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said in an editorial Monday.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
