Dozens killed in South Korea after plane veers off runway, bursts into flames
A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skid off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing at least 85 people, officials said about one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
The National Fire Agency (NFA) said the fire was almost put out but officials were still trying to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane, which had been carrying 181 people, at the airport in the southern town of Muan, about 290 kilometres south of Seoul.
At least 85 people died in the fire, the NFA said. Emergency workers pulled out two crew members — one man and one woman.
It said it deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire.
Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility.
The Transport Ministry said the incident happened at 9:03 a.m. local time.
Local TV stations aired footage showing the plane engulfed in flame with thick pillows of black smoke billowing from it.
Emergency officials in Muan said they were examining the cause of the fire, initially saying the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned. The Transport Ministry said the plane was returning from Bangkok, and its passengers include two Thai nationals.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident through a post on the social platform X. Paetongtarn said she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
It’s one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997 when an Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.
The incident came as South Korea is embroiled into a huge political crisis triggered by then-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment.
On Friday, South Korean lawmakers also impeached acting president Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.
Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew, according to Yonhap news agency.
Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting of senior presidential staff later on Sunday to discuss the crash.
Published at Sun, 29 Dec 2024 02:56:24 +0000
Bodycam video shows officers beating handcuffed man before his death at N.Y. prison
Warning: This story and video contain details of violence.
Newly released video of a fatal New York prison beating shows correctional officers repeatedly pummelling a handcuffed man, striking him in the chest with a shoe, and lifting him by the neck and dropping him.
Body camera footage of the Dec. 9 assault on Robert Brooks was made public Friday by the state’s attorney general, who is investigating the officers’ use of force.
Brooks, 43, was pronounced dead at a hospital the morning after the assault at the Marcy Correctional Facility, a state prison where was incarcerated in Oneida County.
Thirteen correctional officers and a nurse implicated in the attack will face termination, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who said she was “outraged and horrified” by videos of the “senseless killing.”
Like all New Yorkers, I was outraged and horrified after seeing footage of the senseless killing of Robert Brooks. <br><br>My full statement here: <a href=”https://t.co/JAqfmDN4hx”>pic.twitter.com/JAqfmDN4hx</a>
—@GovKathyHochul
The footage made public Friday shows correctional officers repeatedly punching Brooks in the face and groin as he sits handcuffed on a medical examination table.
As one of the officers uses a shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach, another yanks him up by his neck and drops him back on the table. The officers then remove the man’s shirt and pants as he lies on his back, motionless and bloodied.
“These videos are shocking and disturbing and I advise all to take appropriate care before choosing to watch them,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
The final results of Brooks’s autopsy are still pending.
Preliminary findings from a medical examination indicate “concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to court filings.
Newly released bodycam footage shows correctional officers at a prison in Upstate New York hitting and kicking a handcuffed prisoner before his death. New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office, which is investigating the incident, released the footage on Friday.
‘Horrific and extreme’
The videos do not include audio because the body cameras had not been activated by the officers wearing them.
The state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision issued a directive in the wake of Brooks’s death requiring that staff use body cameras in every interaction with incarcerated people.
James said her office was investigating the use of force that led to Brooks’s death, but did not say whether any of the officers would be charged with crimes.
With the release of the videos, “members of the public can now view for themselves the horrific and extreme nature of the deadly attack on Robert L. Brooks,” said a lawyer for his family, Elizabeth Mazur.
“As viewers can see, Mr. Brooks was fatally, violently beaten by a group of officers whose job was to keep him safe,” Mazur said. “He deserved to live, and everyone else living in Marcy Correctional Facility deserves to know they do not have to live in fear of violence at the hands of prison staff.”
‘Systemic issues’
The union for state correctional officers, which viewed footage of the assault before its public release, said in a statement: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”
“This incident not only endangers our entire membership but undermines the integrity of our profession. We cannot and will not condone this behaviour,” said the union, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.
Brooks had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. He had arrived at the Marcy Correctional Facility only hours before the beating, after being transferred from another nearby state prison, officials said.
Marcy is about 323 kilometres northwest of New York City, between the cities of Rome and Utica.
Correctional Association of New York (CANY) Statement on the Release of Video Depicting the Killing of<br>Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility <a href=”https://t.co/nLN2irOo3u”>pic.twitter.com/nLN2irOo3u</a>
—@CANY_1844
The Correctional Association of New York, a prison oversight group, said it had documented reports of pervasive brutality and racism inside the Marcy Correctional Facility during a monitoring visit two years ago.
The organization’s executive director, Jennifer Scaife, said the footage of Brooks being beaten “is sickening and appalling, but not surprising” given its previous findings. She called on the state prison system to “address the systemic issues that allow such brutality to flourish.”
David Condliffe, the executive director of the alternatives-to-incarceration nonprofit Center for Community Alternatives, said in a statement: “For every instance caught on camera, countless more acts of violence and murder in prisons are ignored, justified, or covered up.
“Accountability must include, but cannot stop with, the firing of a few individuals. Their violence is not an anomaly; it is the product of a system steeped in impunity.”
Published at Sat, 28 Dec 2024 23:35:29 +0000
