Jeju Air Crash: South Korea Orders Nationwide Airline Safety Inspection
Moneylife Digital Team 30 December 2024
South Korea's acting president, Choi Sang-mok has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operation system once the recovery work on the Jeju Air crash is completed. On Sunday, the deadliest air accident killed 179 people when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport in South Korea.
  
Acting president Choi, who was appointed on Friday, visited the crash site on Sunday.
  
South Korea's director general of the ministry of land, infrastructure, and transport said the country plans to conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800s in operation, with US investigators, possibly including representatives from the beleaguered manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.
  
Meanwhile, investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors in the crash. Transport ministry officials on Monday said that as the pilots made a scheduled approach, they informed air traffic control that the aircraft had suffered a bird strike shortly after the control tower had warned them of birds spotted in the vicinity. The pilots then declared a mayday and signalled their intention to go around, just before the aircraft belly-landed on the runway and crashed into a structure at the end of the runway.
  
South Korea has begun seven days of national mourning, with the acting president visiting the crash site in southwestern Muan for a memorial.
  
Mourners grieved, laid flowers, and paid their respects to the victims of Sunday's plane crash at a memorial center set up in the South Korean city of Muan on Monday.
 
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