As South Korea was shocked on Monday by the crash and fire of a Jeju Air plane that killed 179 people, a team of US investigators joined local authorities to investigate the possible causes.
The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea when it crashed on arrival on Sunday, killing everyone on board – including two flight attendants pulled from the wreckage in the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil Except.
Authorities have cited bird strike as a possible cause of the crash, which threw passengers from the plane and “almost completely destroyed” it, according to fire officials.
Video shows Jeju Air Flight 2216 landing on its belly at Muan International Airport, skidding off the runway as smoke billows from the engine, before hitting a wall and bursting into flames.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Sunday it would lead a team of investigators including Boeing and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to join with South Korean authorities in investigating the cause of the crash. The country’s air safety record is solid.
Both black boxes – the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder – have been found.
One of the surviving flight attendants was awake in hospital and able to talk late Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported.
“When I woke up, I had already been rescued,” the 33-year-old man told doctors, according to the hospital.
He suffered multiple fractures, while the other crew member – a 25-year-old woman – suffered injuries to her ankle and head, Yonhap reports.
Inside the airport terminal late Sunday night, tearful family members gathered to wait for news.
An official named the 65 victims who have been identified, each name evoking new screams of grief.
Under floodlights, rescue workers used a giant yellow crane to lift the charred body of the orange and white plane onto the runway in Muan, about 288 kilometers (about 180 miles) southwest of Seoul.
Pieces of the plane’s seats and luggage were scattered across the field next to the runway, not far from the burnt tail.
Apart from two Thai people, a three-year-old and a 78-year-old man, all the passengers were Korean, officials said.
“I had a son on that plane,” an elderly man waiting in the airport lounge told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“My little sister went to heaven today,” the 65-year-old woman, who gave only her surname, told AFP.
Authorities said they are working to complete the identities of all the victims.
Minutes before the crash, the control tower had issued a bird strike warning, with the pilot making a “mayday” distress call shortly thereafter.
Video showed the plane leaving the road and hitting a wall, but officials dismissed speculation that runway length could have been a factor in the crash.
At a press conference in Seoul that showed top executives bowing, low-cost carrier Jeju Air said it “sincerely” apologized.
Boeing said it is in contact with Jeju Air and stands ready to support them.
South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok, who took office on Friday, called an emergency cabinet meeting and then visited the crash site in Muen.
US President Joe Biden led a wave of global condolences, saying he was “deeply saddened” by the crash.
South Korea declared seven days of national mourning, with memorial altars set up across the country.
It is the first fatal accident in the history of Jeju Air, one of South Korea’s largest low-cost carriers, which was founded in 2005.
There have been several fatal aviation accidents globally due to bird strikes, which can cause power outages if the animals become trapped in the aircraft’s airstream.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
