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South Korean plane crash: Victim’s haunting text as mystery deepens over cause
A passenger on the doomed South Korean flight sent a chilling message moments before the plane burst into flames as experts are left baffled by a key detail. Follow the updates.
A passenger on the doomed Jeju Air flight sent a chilling message moments before the plane slammed into a concrete barrier and burst into flames in South Korea, killing 179 people.
A victim aboard the jet, which flew from Thailand to Muan International Airport, texted a relative that a bird was stuck in the plane’s wing, according to News1 agency.
“Should I say my last words?” the passenger said in the message.
All 175 passengers, both pilots and the two other crew members were killed in the blaze that swept through the wreckage.
Two flight crew members, a 33-year-old male flight attendant and a 25-year-old woman, miraculously survived and were rescue from the back of the plane.
Questions are now being asked, however, over the initial theory of events given by officials, who have said a “bird strike” likely caused the crash.
Damage to the engine could impact damage to the engine could impact the plane’s hydraulics and landing gear but aviation experts have been left baffled over why the plane descended so rapidly and made its fatal skidded landing, The Sun reports.
Julian Bray, an aviation expert and major incident consultant, told The Sun the crash was “confusing”.
He said: “We need to put together the process second-by-second, find out which controls were working - which failed and only then can you come to a proper conclusion.”
The expert added he questioned how much control the pilot had of the plane — as despite hitting the ground with no landing gear at a rapid speed the pilot managed keep the plane “level”.
Lee Jeong-hyun, chief of Muan fire station, said: “The cause of the accident is presumed to be a bird strike combined with adverse weather conditions. However, the exact cause will be announced following a joint investigation.
All passengers were South Korean nationals, except for two Thai nationals, Yonhap reports.
The Muan International Airport is in Muan county, which is about 288km southwest of Seoul.
Follow the updates below:
FLAGS AT HALF-MAST
Flags flew at half-mast on Monday as South Korea mourned 179 people killed in the worst plane crash on its soil, as investigators probe why the Jeju Air plane crash-landed and burst into flames.
The country has started seven days of national mourning, with the acting president flying to the crash site in southwestern Muan for a memorial as teams of US and South Korean investigators raced to establish what caused Sunday’s disaster.
The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea when it made a mayday call and belly-landing before crashing into a barrier and bursting into flames.
Everyone on board Jeju Air Flight 2216 was killed, save two flight attendants pulled from the wreckage.
Officials initially 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.
However, Seoul said on Monday it would conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800s in operation in the country, with US investigators, possibly including from the beleaguered plane manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.
“We are reviewing plans to conduct a special inspection on B737-800 aircraft,” said Joo Jong-wan, head of the aviation policy bureau at South Korea’s transport ministry.
South Korea has a solid air safety record and both black boxes from Flight 2216 - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder - have been found.
South Korean investigators said Monday that 141 of the 179 victims had now been identified using DNA analysis or fingerprint collection, according to a statement from South Korea’s ministry of land.
Victims’ families camped out at the airport overnight in special tents set up in the airport lounge after a long, painful day waiting for news of their loved ones.
“I had a son on board that plane,” said an elderly man waiting in the airport lounge, who asked not to be named, saying that his son’s body had not yet been identified.
SOUTH KOREA INSPECTS B737-800 FLEET
South Korea ordered Monday a “comprehensive inspection” of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s carriers, after a Jeju Air plane crash-landed and burst into flames, killing 179 people on board.
US air safety officials and staff from the beleaguered aircraft maker Boeing were arriving to join investigators probing the worst air disaster on South Korean soil, which officials initially blamed on a collision with birds.
CRASH PROMPTS MASS CANCELLATIONS
After 179 people were killed on Jeju Air Flight 2216 in the worst plane crash in South Korea, the low-cost carrier told AFP Monday it was facing a wave of cancellations.
“From midnight the previous day (Sunday) to 1.00 pm today (0400 GMT Monday), the number of canceled flight tickets totaled approximately 68,000,” a Jeju Air official told AFP.
Domestic flights accounted for around 33,000 cancellations, while international flights cancellations stood at around 34,000, the company said.
An inflow of new bookings, however, was still maintained, the company added. “Given the current situation, the cancellation rate is slightly higher than usual. However, the inflow of new bookings remains steady,” Song Kyung-hoon, head of the management support office at Jeju Air, told a news conference.
Major travel agencies were also reporting mass cancellations due to crash-related travel anxiety.
“We got at least 400 cancellations in the first hour of our opening,” a travel agency, one of the country’s biggest, told AFP.
“Many also are asking if their aircraft is the Boeing 737-800, and if so, they want to cancel,” they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Originally published as South Korean plane crash: Victim’s haunting text as mystery deepens over cause
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