Tears and prayers at South Korea Airport for the victims of the plane crash

Tears and prayers at South Korea Airport for the victims of the plane crash

Muan County in South Korea - on Monday the sounds of wines, prayers and grief echoed through the departure hall of an airport in southwestern South Korea. The members of the victims, who had lost their lives in be identified.

Details on the plane crash

On a Jeju Air flight with 175 passengers and six crew members, almost all of them lost their lives to two people after falling at the airport in Muan County on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. This represents the heaviest aircraft disaster in South Korea in almost 30 years.

The relatives and friends cried in the Muan International Airport's departure hall, while paramedics announced the names of the 141 victims identified. The authorities are currently using DNA tests to identify the remaining 28 corpses, as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced.

emotional scenes at the airport

in the high atrium, which normally serves as a departure hall, numerous families crowded together and murmured soft prayers. Some were hugged and cried, while several monks spoke to groups. Rows of yellow tents were ready for people who had stayed overnight. Several relatives could be seen how they screamed civil servants and asked for more information.

causes research of the crash

Examination of examinations to find out what could have caused the crash of the Jeju Air Fluges 7c 2216 from Bangkok to Muan. Local officials speculate about a possible bird strike as a trigger for the disaster.

Videos of the crash, which were broadcast by several South Korean news agencies, showed that neither the rear nor the front chassis of the aircraft was visible. The Boeing 737-800 slipped on the stomach at high speed, hit an earth wall and opened in a fire ball.

experts told CNN that the chassis of the aircraft - especially the bikes for starting and landing - were apparently not fully extended. The cause of this extremely rare failure remains unclear.

Investigations and national grief

The two Black Boxes - the flight data writer and the voice recorder - were secured according to a message from the Ministry of Transport at the scene of the accident. However, the flight recorder had suffered external damage, which is why it had to be sent to Seoul for analysis to find out which information could be extracted and whether it had to be sent to the United States.

The National Security Authority of Transport (NTSB) leads a team of American investigators, including experts from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration to support the South Korean authorities. The NTSB stated that information from South Korea's investigative authority for aviation and rail accidents is published.

According to the South Korean Ministry of Transport, the control tower had instructed the pilot to change the course and land in the opposite direction to avoid a possible bird strike. The pilot followed these instructions.

The reaction of the government and the emergency services

About a minute later the pilot gave a Mayday call to the tower. The landing test took place about two minutes after the Mayday call, according to the Ministry.

The boss pilot of the flight has played this role since 2019 and had around 6800 flight hours. South Korea's reigning president, Choi Sang-Mok, called for seven days of national grief and ordered an investigation into the country's entire air traffic system.

"We will announce the progress of the investigations of the accident transparently, even before the final results are published and the mourners keep up to date," said Choi on Monday at a meeting on disaster coping in Seoul.

grief for the victims

The tragedy occurred only two days after Choi took over its presidential duties, as a result, the parliament against Prime Minister Han Duck-Soo, who was in office since President Yoon Sul Yeol was raised.

More than 700 forces from the police, the military and coast guard were mobilized for the operational measures according to the Ministry of Transport.

mourners have started to put flowers and candles on a public memorial in Muan, which was set up to honor the victims of the crash, as videos of the Reuters news agency show.

life stories of the victims

The victims of the crash on Sunday include 84 men, 85 women and 10 people whose gender could not be determined, according to the South Korea fire brigade. Both survivors were occupation members, a man and a woman, as the rescue team announced.

his daughter, Jongluk, had worked in a factory in South Korea for several years and previously visited her family in Thailand before starting Bangkok to Muan.

"I heard that the plane exploded in Korea this morning. But I never expected my daughter to be on this flight," he said.

Another man who lost his daughter told Reuters that he hadn't heard of her before the crash. "She was almost at home, so she saw no reason to call," said 71-year-old Jeon Je-Young about his daughter Jeon Mi-Sook.

"She thought she was coming home. In the last moments, when she tried to get in touch, the damage had already been done and the plane had probably crashed," he added.