Officials take part in the investigation at the site where a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 aircraft crashed and burst into flames at Muan International Airport in Muan, some 288 kilometres southwest of Seoul on January 2, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

South Korean police on Thursday (January 2, 2025) raided the offices of Jeju Air and the operator of Muan International Airport as part of the probe into the fatal crash of a Boeing 737-800 plane that killed 179 people.

Also read: Jeju Air CEO banned from leaving South Korea after fatal crash: police

The flight was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea on Sunday (December 29, 2024) when it issued a mayday call and belly-landed before slamming into a barrier, killing everyone aboard except two flight attendants pulled from the burning wreckage.

Search and seizure operations at the Muan airport

Authorities carried out search and seizure operations at the Muan airport where flight 2216 crashed, a regional aviation office in the southwestern city, and Jeju Air’s office in the capital Seoul.

South Korean and US investigators, including from Boeing, have been combing the crash site since the disaster to establish a cause, with both black boxes found and decoding work ongoing.

“In relation to the plane accident… a search and seizure operation is being conducted from 9 am (0000 GMT) on January 2 at three locations,” police said in a statement sent to AFP.

“The police plan to swiftly and rigorously determine the cause and responsibility for this accident in accordance with the law and principles.”

Police told AFP the search warrant was issued, and Yonhap reported it was approved on charges of professional negligence resulting in death, citing officials.

South Korea has also announced it will inspect all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by its carriers, focusing on the landing gear, which appears to have malfunctioned during the Sunday crash.

South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, said Thursday that “immediate action” must be taken if that probe uncovered any issues with the aircraft model.

Authorities have previously said 101 aircraft of the same model were in operation by six different airlines.

“As there’s great public concern about the same aircraft model involved in the accident, the transport ministry and relevant agencies must conduct a thorough inspection of operation maintenance, education, and training,” Choi said Thursday.

“If any issues are found during the inspection, please take immediate corrective action,” he added.

The accident is the worst-ever aviation disaster on South Korean soil.

South Korean authorities have completed the initial extraction of data for the cockpit voice recorder, but the flight data recorder was damaged and was to be sent to the United States for analysis, officials said Wednesday.

Country’s airports are being inspected

Officials initially pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the disaster, and have since said the probe was also examining a concrete barrier at the end of the runway.

Dramatic video showed the plane colliding with it before bursting into flames.

The land ministry said in a statement that the country’s airports were also being inspected “to evaluate the installation locations” around their runways.

As the investigation continued, families travelled to the crash site for the first time to pay their respects on Wednesday and some returned the following day with cardboard boxes to collect their loved ones’s belongings.

On Thursday at the airport, a monk led prayers close to the crash site, while inside the airport, the stairs were covered in colourful post-it notes left by mourners.

“Honey, I miss you way too much,” one of them said.

“Even if you faced lonely and painful moments in death, may you now soar like a butterfly,” another read.

Relatives also left flowers and food near the site including tteokguk — rice cake soup traditionally enjoyed in South Korea on New Year’s Day — as they said their goodbyes, many in tears.

Local media reported on a handwritten note, seemingly written by the pilot’s brother, that was placed alongside gimbap — a popular Korean dish — and a drink cup near the crash site.

“I feel heartbroken when I think about the struggles you faced alone (in your last moments),” it read.

“You were truly amazing and did so well, so I hope you can now find happiness in a warm place. Thank you, and I’m sorry.”

On Wednesday — a public holiday in the South — hundreds of people queued up to pay their respects at an airport memorial altar set up to honour the victims.

So many people came to the memorial that the queue stretched for hundreds of metres and the local cell phone network was overloaded, local media reported.

Other altars for the victims have been set up nationwide.

The wreckage of the Jeju Air aircraft that went off the runway and crashed lies near skid marks on the runway at Muan International Airport, in Muan, South Korea, December 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

South Korea ramped up investigations on Tuesday (December 31, 2024) into the cause of its deadliest domestic air accident as police scrambled to identify victims, while families of those killed in this week’s crash of a Jeju Air jet pushed for more details.

All 175 passengers and four of the six crew were killed when the 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 an embankment holding navigation equipment.

But remarks in the airport’s operating manual, uploaded early in 2024, said the embankment was too close to the end of the runway and recommended that the location of the equipment be reviewed during a planned expansion.

A transport ministry official said authorities would need to check the document before replying to questions, however.

On Monday, South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation.

Impatience rose on Tuesday among exhausted families gathered at the airport as they waited for the bodies of their loved ones to be released.

One bereaved relative, Park Han-shin, said the bodies being held in freezers were prepared for transfer to funeral homes but the process could take time, and urged others to stay patient.

The National Police Agency said it was making all-out efforts to speed identification of the five bodies still unknown, by allocating more personnel and equipment such as rapid DNA analysers.

A “black box” flight data recorder recovered from the crash site was missing a key connector and authorities were reviewing how to extract its data, but retrieval of data from the cockpit voice recorder has begun, the transport ministry told briefings.

Inspections of all 101 B737-800s operated by South Korean airlines were set to wrap up by Jan. 3, though the airport would stay closed until Jan. 7, it added in a statement.

Representatives of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Federal Aviation Administration, and aircraft maker Boeing have joined the investigations.

In a statement, the NTSB said it sent three investigators to assist, some specialised in operational factors and airworthiness.

“If we need more specialists we will send them,” Jennifer Homendy, its chair, said in an interview.

Questions about embankment

Crash investigators are considering possible factors such as bird strikes and disabled control systems on the aircraft to the pilots’ apparent rush to attempt a landing soon after declaring an emergency, fire and transport officials have said.

Officials have also faced pointed questions about airport design features, particularly the large dirt-and-concrete embankment near the end of the runway used for navigation equipment.

The plane slammed into the embankment at high speed and erupted into a fireball. Bodies and body parts were thrown into surrounding fields and most of the aircraft disintegrated in flames.

“Unfortunately, that thing was the reason that everybody got killed, because they literally hit a concrete structure,” Captain Ross “Rusty” Aimer, the chief executive of Aero Consulting Experts, told Reuters.

“It shouldn’t have been there.”

Transport Ministry officials said most South Korean airports were built based on International Civil Aviation Organization rules that recommend a 240-m (262-yard) runway-end safety area.

However, a domestic law allows adjusting location of some installations in a range that does not “significantly affect the performance of the facility”.

“But we’ll look into whether there are any conflicts in our own regulations, and conduct an additional review of our airport safety standards,” Kim Hong-rak, director general for airport and air navigation facilities policy, told a briefing.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority uses different standards, Kim added.

Muan International Airport’s Airport Operations Manual said the navigation equipment, called “localizers”, was installed too near the end of the runway, or just 199 m (218 yards) from the crash site.

The document, prepared by Korea Airports Corp and uploaded on its website, said the airport authority should “review securing additional distance during phase two of Muan International Airport’s expansion”.

South Korean officials have previously said the structure was about 250 m (273 yards) from the end of the runway itself, though a paved apron extends past that.

The runway design “absolutely (did) not” meet industry best practices, however, said John Cox, chief executive of Safety Operating Systems and a former 737 pilot, adding that they preclude any hard structure like a berm within at least 300 m of the end of the runway.

Video showed the plane appearing to slow down and in control when it went off the runway, Cox said. “When it hits that berm is when it turns into tragedy.”