Families of Jeju Air Crash Victims Denounce Government Report Blaming Pilot Error

The families of those killed in South Korea’s deadliest domestic aviation disaster have strongly condemned a government report that attributes the cause of the crash to pilot error. The crash, involving a Boeing 737-800, occurred on December 29th last year, during a flight from Thailand to the southwest of South Korea, and resulted in the tragic deaths of 179 passengers and crew members.

Key Events of the Disaster:

The aircraft made a belly-landing at Muan Airport and exploded upon hitting a concrete barrier, creating a fireball. The South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport had initially planned to release a partial report on the investigation over the weekend. However, following strong objections from the victims’ families, the ministry postponed the briefing and withheld the findings, citing concerns that the report could be misleading.

Government Report Findings

The partial report concluded that a bird strike had damaged the plane’s right engine, but that the pilot mistakenly shut down the left engine instead, which caused a complete power loss and led to a failure of the landing gear system. According to the findings, the pilot’s instructions were to shut down engine number two (the right engine), but the flight data recorder revealed that it was, in fact, the left engine that had been turned off.

Kim Youn-mi, a spokesperson for the families of the victims, expressed their discontent with the report, stating that they had not been provided with direct access to the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, crucial pieces of evidence in understanding the chain of events leading to the crash.

“No one has directly seen or heard the cockpit voice recorder or the flight data recorder,” Kim said in an interview with AFP. “We weren’t given any proper explanation about those things. We need to hear that to know. We have the right.”

Union Response

The Jeju Air pilots’ union also voiced their anger at the report’s conclusions, accusing the authorities of “wrongfully” blaming the pilot for the crash. The union expressed its “strong displeasure” with the findings and vowed to “firmly reject the malicious attempt to shift blame onto the pilot.”

Investigation Still Underway

While the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport has shared its partial findings, the investigation is far from complete. Both South Korean and US investigators are continuing to probe the cause of the disaster, with bird strikes, faulty landing gear, and the runway barrier all being considered as potential contributing factors.

Possible Contributing Factors:

The final report is expected to be released in June next year. As the investigation continues, both the families of the victims and aviation experts will be closely watching for more conclusive findings.

The disagreement over the report underscores the ongoing grief and frustration of the victims’ families, who are demanding full transparency and accountability. They insist that any final conclusions must be based on thorough, unbiased analysis, and that they are entitled to a clearer understanding of what went wrong during that fateful flight.