Muan:

South Korean police raided the offices of Jeju Air and the operator of Muan International Airport Thursday as they stepped up a probe into the fatal crash of a Boeing 737-800 that killed 179 people.

The flight was carrying 181 passengers and crew from Thailand to South Korea on Sunday when it issued a mayday call and belly-landed before slamming into a barrier, killing all aboard except two flight attendants.

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

Jeju Air’s chief executive Kim E-bae has also been banned from leaving the country as the investigation continues, police said separately. 

“The police plan to swiftly and rigorously determine the cause and responsibility for this accident in accordance with the law and principles,” police said in a statement sent to AFP.

At Muan airport Thursday, soldiers, police and white-suited investigators were still combing the crash site, as orange-robed monks held prayer ceremonies nearby. 

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 crash site including tteokguk — rice cake soup traditionally enjoyed in South Korea on New Year’s Day — as they said their goodbyes, many in tears.

Star chefs featured in Netflix’s megahit cooking competition show “Culinary Class Wars”, including Ahn Yu-seong, joined volunteers in Muan this week to prepare meals for the victims’ families.

And people nationwide were remotely pre-paying for coffee at the airport’s cafe so that victims’ families, who have been camped out in the lounge since Sunday, waiting for news, could drink for free.

More bodies were released Thursday to families to prepare for funerals, the land ministry said.

Concrete barrier

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

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

Yonhap reported the Muan airport warrant was approved on charges of professional negligence resulting in death, citing officials.

“Police are securing evidence related to the legitimacy of the airport’s localizer,” Yonhap said, referring to the concrete wall at the end of the runway housing an antenna array.

They are also seeking communication records between the control tower and the pilot shortly before the plane crash, it added.

Airports nationwide were being inspected to check other similar localizers, the land ministry said in a statement.

Some experts have suggested that the disaster may have been less deadly if the installation not been concrete.

Boeing inspections

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.

The accident is the worst 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.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

South Korea was reeling Monday from the loss of 179 people after a Jeju Air plane crash-landed and burst into flames, with a team of US investigators joining local authorities to probe possible causes.

The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea when it crashed on arrival Sunday, killing everyone aboard — save two flight attendants pulled from the twisted wreckage of the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil. 

Officials have cited a bird strike as a likely cause of the crash, which flung passengers from the plane and left it “almost completely destroyed”, according to fire officials.

Video showed Jeju Air Flight 2216 landing on its belly at Muan International Airport, skidding off the runway as smoke streamed out from the engines, before crashing into a wall and exploding in flames.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Sunday that it would lead a team of investigators, including from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), to join officials in South Korea in probing what caused the crash. The country has a solid air safety record.

Both black boxes — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — have been found.

One of the flight attendants who survived was awake in hospital and able to communicate late Sunday, the Yonhap news agency reported. 

“When I woke up, I had already been rescued,” the 33-year-old told doctors, according to the hospital.

He suffered multiple fractures, while the other crew member — a 25-year-old woman — injured her ankle and head, Yonhap reported.

Inside the airport terminal late Sunday, tearful family members gathered to wait for news.

An official called out the names of 65 victims who have been identified, with each name triggering fresh cries of grief. 

Under floodlights, rescue workers used a giant yellow crane to lift the burned-out fuselage of the orange-and-white aircraft on the runway at Muan — some 288 kilometres (about 180 miles) southwest of Seoul.

Bits of plane seats and luggage were strewn across the field next to the runway, not far from the charred tail.

All of the passengers were Korean apart from two Thais, a three-year-old and a 78-year-old, authorities said.

“I had a son on board that plane,” an elderly man waiting in the airport lounge, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

“My younger sister went to heaven today,” a 65-year-old woman, who gave only her surname Jo, told AFP.

Authorities said they were working to complete the identification of all victims.

Minutes before the crash, the control tower had issued a warning of a bird strike, with the pilot soon after making a “mayday” distress call.

Video shows the plane coming off the tarmac and hitting a wall, but officials dismissed speculation that the length of the runway might be a factor in the crash.

Low-cost carrier Jeju Air said it “sincerely” apologised, with top officials shown bowing deeply at a press conference in Seoul.

Boeing said that it was in touch with Jeju Air and stood “ready to support them”.

South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok, who took office only on Friday, convened an emergency cabinet meeting and then visited the crash site at Muan.

US President Joe Biden led a wave of global condolences, saying he was “deeply saddened” by the crash. 

South Korea declared a seven-day national mourning period, with memorial altars to be set up nationwide.

It is the first fatal accident in the history of Jeju Air, one of South Korea’s largest low-cost carriers, which was established in 2005.

A number of fatal aviation accidents have occurred globally due to bird strikes, which can cause a loss of power if the animals are sucked into a plane’s air intakes.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)