South Korea orders inspection of all Boeing 737-800 planes like the one that crashed, killing 179

Seoul, South Korea — South Korean officials said Monday they will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 planes operated by the country’s airlines as they scramble to determine the cause of the malfunction the plane crash in which 179 people died the day before.

Sunday’s crash, the nation’s worst aviation disaster in decades, prompted an outpouring of national sympathy.

Many people worry about how effectively the South Korean government will deal with the disaster as it grapples with a leadership vacuum after the recent back-to-back the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister and Acting President Han Duck-sootwo of the country’s highest officials, amid the political unrest caused by Yoon the brief introduction of a state of emergency at the beginning of this month.

New acting president Choi Sang-mok presided over a task force meeting on the crash on Monday and ordered authorities to carry out an urgent review of the country’s air traffic control system.

“The essence of a responsible response would be to revamp the aviation security system as a whole to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents and build a safer Republic of South Korea,” said Choi, who is also deputy prime minister and finance minister.

A Boeing 737-800 of South Korean low-cost airline Jeju Air abandoned its first landing attempt for reasons that were not immediately clear. Then, during the second landing attempt, he received a bird strike warning from the ground control center before the pilot issued a distress signal. The aircraft landed without the front landing gear deployed, overshot the runway, crashed into a concrete barrier and exploded into a fireball.

Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines and now a consultant, said the Boeing 737-800 is a “proven aircraft” that belongs to a different class of aircraft than Boeing 737 Max which was linked to fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019.

But South Korea’s transport ministry said Monday it plans to conduct safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes operated by airlines there, as well as a broader review of safety standards at Jeju Air, which operates 39 of those planes. Senior ministry official Joo Jong-wan said representatives from the US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing are expected to arrive in South Korea on Monday to take part in the investigation.

Ministry officials also said they would examine whether Muan Airport’s localizer – a concrete enclosure housing an array of antennas designed to safely guide aircraft during landing – should have been made of lighter materials that would break more easily on impact.

Joo said the ministry found similar concrete structures exist at other domestic airports, including Jeju Island and the southern cities of Yeosu and Pohang, as well as airports in the United States, Spain and South Africa.

Video of the crash showed the pilots did not open the flaps or slats to slow the plane, indicating a possible hydraulic failure, and did not manually lower the landing gear, suggesting they did not have time, said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Even so, the jet was under control and traveling in a straight line, and damage and injuries likely would have been minimized had the barrier not been so close to the runway, Cox said.

Other observers said video footage showed the plane allegedly had engine trouble, but that a malfunctioning landing gear was likely the direct cause of the crash. They said there would likely be no connection between the landing gear problem and the suspected engine problem.

Earlier on Monday, another Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air returned to Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport shortly after takeoff when the pilot discovered a problem with the landing gear. Song Kyung-hoon, CEO of Jeju Air, said the problem was resolved by communicating with the equipment center on the ground, but the pilot decided to return to Gimpo as a precaution.

Local media reported that 21 passengers had decided not to board the alternative flight to Jeju due to security concerns and other reasons, Agence France-Presse reported.

Ministry officials said on Monday that the crashed plane’s flight data and cockpit audio recorders had been moved to a research center at Gimpo Airport ahead of analysis. Ministry officials had previously said it would take months to complete an investigation into the crash.

The Muan crash is South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster since 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.

The accident left many South Koreans shocked and embarrassed, and the government declared seven days of national mourning until January 4. Some have questioned whether the accident involved safety or regulatory issues, such as the 2022 Seoul Halloween jam that killed 160 people and the 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304.

The Transport Ministry said authorities had identified 146 bodies and were collecting DNA and fingerprint samples from the other 33.

Park Han Shin, a representative of the bereaved families, said they were told the bodies were so badly damaged that officials needed time before returning them to their families.

“I demand that the government mobilize more personnel to bring back our brothers and family members as intact as possible,” he said, choking back tears.

The crash was even more important news for South Koreans already reeling from the political crisis triggered by Yoon’s emergency decree, which brought hundreds of soldiers to the streets of Seoul and revived traumatic memories of the past military rule of the 1970s-80s.

The political turmoil resulted in the impeachment of Yoon and Han by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The security minister resigned and the police chief was arrested for their role in enforcing martial law.

The absence of top officials responsible for disaster management has raised concerns.

“We are deeply concerned about whether the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters will really be able to deal with the disaster,” the widely circulated JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.