South Korea orders air safety probe after worst crash in country kills 179
South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation system as investigators worked to identify victims and find out what caused the deadliest air disaster in the country.
All 175 passengers and four of the six crew were killed when a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway at Muan International Airport on Sunday, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall. Two crew members were pulled out alive.
The top priority for now is identifying the victims, supporting their families and treating the two survivors, Choi told a disaster management meeting in Seoul.
Monks, members of the public and Choi Sang-mok, South Korea’s acting president, all paid their respects at the memorial in Muan, South Korea, on Monday. The investigation continues into what caused the plane crash that killed 179 people on Sunday.
“Even before the final results are out, we ask that officials transparently disclose the accident investigation process and promptly inform the bereaved families,” he said.
“As soon as the accident recovery is conducted, the transport ministry is requested to conduct an emergency safety inspection of the entire aircraft operation system to prevent recurrence of aircraft accidents.”
As a first step, the transport ministry announced plans to conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by South Korean airliners beginning on Monday, focusing on the maintenance record of key components.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was trying to land shortly after 9 a.m. local time at the airport in the south of the country.
Investigators are examining possible factors in the crash, including bird strikes, whether any of the aircraft’s control systems were disabled, and the apparent rush by the pilots to attempt a landing soon after declaring an emergency, fire and transportation officials have said.
Experts say many questions remain, including why the plane, powered by two CFM 56-7B26 engines, appeared to be travelling so fast, and why its landing gear did not appear to be down when it skidded down the runway and into a wall.
CFM International is a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.
On Monday, transport ministry officials said as the pilots made a scheduled approach they told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike, shortly after the control tower gave them a warning birds were spotted in the vicinity.
Authorities are investigating the cause of a plane crash at Muan airport in South Korea, after it skidded along the runway and burst into flames, killing at least 179 people on board.
The pilots then issued a mayday warning and signalled their intention to abandon the landing and to go around and try again. Shortly afterward, the aircraft came down on the runway in a belly landing, touching down about 1,200 metres along the 2,800-metre runway and sliding into the embankment at the end of the runway.
Officials are investigating what role the localizer antenna, located at the end of the runway to help in landing, played in the crash, including the concrete embankment on which it was standing, transport ministry officials told a media briefing.
“Normally, on an airport with a runway at the end, you don’t have a wall,” said Christian Beckert, a flight safety expert and Lufthansa pilot based in Munich.
“You more have maybe an engineered material arresting system, which lets the airplane sink into the ground a little bit and brakes [it].”
The crash killed mostly local residents who were returning from holidays in Thailand, while two Thai nationals also died.
“I can only accept it, make peace with it,” said Boonchuay Duangmanee, 77, the father of one of the Thai victims. “When I think about it, I remind myself that it was an accident. It’s something that can happen to anyone. So, I’ve come to terms with it because no matter what I do, my daughter won’t come back.”
On Monday morning, investigators were trying to identify some of the last remaining victims, as anguished families waited inside the Muan airport terminal.
Park Han-shin, who lost his brother in the crash, said he was told by authorities that his brother had been identified but has not been able to see his body.
Park called on other victims’ families to unite in responding to the disaster and recovery efforts, citing a 2014 ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people. Many relatives of the victims of the Sewol ferry disaster complained it took authorities too long to identify those killed and the cause of that accident.
Flight data recorder recovered
Emergency workers were sifting through wreckage that was nearly completely destroyed when the aircraft was engulfed in an explosion of flames and debris at the regional airport near the country’s winding western coastline.
Transportation ministry officials said the jet’s flight data recorder was recovered but appeared to have sustained some damage on the outside and it was not yet clear whether the data was sufficiently intact to be analyzed.
Shares of Jeju Air hit their lowest level on record on Monday, trading as much as 15.7 per cent lower. Boeing’s U.S.-listed shares fell 4.2 per cent in early trading and were set to lose about $5 billion in market capitalization.
Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States where the plane was designed and built.
The NTSB said it was leading a team of U.S. investigators to help South Korea’s aviation authority. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration were also taking part.
Choi, who was overseeing recovery efforts and the investigation, became acting leader just three days ago after the country’s president and prime minister were impeached over the imposition of a short-lived martial law.
Published at Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:26:16 +0000
Ukraine brings home 189 POWs in swap with Russia
Ukraine and Russia carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war (POWs) on Monday, with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
Zelenskyy thanked the United Arab Emirates and other partners for facilitating the swap.
“The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of such days: our team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians home,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.
The Russian Defence Ministry reported the prisoner swap earlier on Monday, saying each side had freed 150 prisoners of war. There was no immediate explanation of the discrepancy in the numbers reported.
Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war on Monday with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that at least 150 of its servicemen are returning home as part of the deal.
Zelenskyy said the returning Ukrainians included soldiers, sergeants and officers from different frontline areas, as well as two civilians who had been captured in the southern port of Mariupol taken by the Russian troops in 2022.
Pictures released by Zelenskyy showed dozens of men sitting in a bus, some of them wrapped in Ukraine’s national blue and yellow flags.
“We are working to free everyone from Russian captivity,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. “We do not forget anyone.”
Zelenskyy said that those freed from Russian captivity included defenders of Snake Island off the Black Sea port of Odesa, which was seized by Russia in the opening days of its invasion, as well as troops who defended the city of Mariupol, which was captured by Moscow’s forces early in the war after a nearly three-month siege.
In Moscow, the Defence Ministry said that Russian servicemen were first taken to the territory of Russia’s neighbour and ally Belarus, where they received “psychological and medical assistance” before moving to Russia.
Russia and Ukraine have conducted dozens of such prisoner exchanges during the nearly three-year war.
The prisoner exchange came as U.S. President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion US more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before president-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Published at Mon, 30 Dec 2024 17:33:37 +0000
