South Korea’s acting President, Choi Sang-mok has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations, while authorities plan a separate check of all Boeing 737-800s.

This came after 179 people died in a Jeju Air crash involving the aircraft on Sunday, December 29, 2024.

The government said that it would carry out the audit of all 101 of the aircraft in domestic operation, with US investigators, possibly including Boeing, joining the probe.

Choi Sang-mok, who was appointed President two days before the disaster, said that an exhaustive inspection was essential to overhaul the aviation safety system and “move toward a safer Republic of Korea.”

He was speaking as reports emerged that a passenger jet belonging to Jeju Air was forced to return to Gimpo airport in Seoul soon after taking off on Monday, December 30, 2024, following an unspecified problem with its landing gear.

South Korea on Monday began seven days of national mourning, with flags flying at half-mast and Acting President Choi Sang-mok travelling to the crash site to pay his respects.

Officials have confirmed that 179 of the 181 passengers and crew died when the Jeju Air plane crashed into a wall at Muan international airport shortly after attempting to land without its landing gear deployed. It is the country’s worst domestic civil aviation disaster.

Two flight attendants – a man and a woman – were rescued from the tail of the aircraft, which burst into flames and broke apart upon impact with the wall.

Investigators said 141 of the 179 victims had been identified using DNA analysis or fingerprint collection, according to a statement from the land ministry.

Landing gear malfunction is among the issues being targeted by the investigation into Sunday’s crash, which occurred after the plane skidded along the runway in what the aviation industry describes as a “belly landing.”

Officials said that the crash could have been caused by a bird strike and weather conditions – or a combination of those and other factors – but the exact cause was not yet known.

The plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the wreckage, but media reports said that it could take longer than usual to determine the cause as the flight data recorder had been damaged in the crash.

While the accident investigation will focus on the model of aircraft, there will inevitably be questions for the flight’s operator Jeju Air.

The low-cost carrier said that it would do all it could to support the families of the victims, including with financial aid.

Its Chief Executive, Kim E-bae, told a televised news conference that he took “full responsibility” for the crash, irrespective of the cause, and bowed deeply in apology with other senior company officials.

He said that the company had not identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations.

Bird Strike Unlikely Sole Cause Of Plane Crash

The fatal crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 in South Korea highlighted the risks bird strikes pose to commercial airliners.

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, pilots told air traffic control that their aircraft collided with a flock of birds shortly before declaring Mayday and making an emergency landing at Muan International Airport.

Bird strikes are a relatively common hazard for commercial aviation but rarely result in serious accidents.

While bird strikes rarely cause problems, they have been implicated in several serious accidents over the years.

Geoffrey Thomas, the Australia-based editor-in-chief of Airline Ratings, opined that a bird strike was likely only a partial cause of the deadly crash.

He noted that evidence points to the aircraft experiencing an electrical failure because it stopped transmitting location data – known as “ADS-B data” – to air traffic control shortly after declaring Mayday.

“It appears as though these pilots were dealing with cascading failures, the exact nature of which we don’t know. What we do know is the ADS-B data stopped, they didn’t deploy their flaps for landing, and they didn’t deploy the undercarriage.”
Geoffrey Thomas