Jeju Air flight disaster...179 dead, 2 rescued.

■ Host: anchor Lee Hyun-woong, anchor Han Ji-won
■ Starring: Shin Gwi-hye, social affairs reporter

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN News Special] when quoting.

[Anchor]
A Jeju Air flight carrying 181 people from Bangkok hit a wall and caught fire while landing at Muan International Airport. 179 people were found dead, except for the two who were rescued. Shin Gwi-hye, a reporter from the Ministry of Social Affairs, is here. How are you? Please explain the accident first.

[Reporter]
In brief, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 crashed into an airport structure at the end of the runway while landing at Muan Airport, causing a fire. If I explain it while looking at the graphic, first of all, it's yesterday. I was scheduled to leave Bangkok, Thailand at 1:30 on the 29th and land at Muan Airport at 8:30 p.m. I tried landing on Runway 1 in 54 minutes but it didn't work out and the control tower alerts me at 57 minutes. But in two minutes, the pilot declared May Day. After that, I tried to land again at 9:01 in two minutes, and in the meantime, the landing gear broke down. At the same time, the emergency landing was attempted, but it is confirmed that the accident occurred when it collided with an external structure of the airport in the process. After that, the first stage of firefighting was issued and the settlement began, and fire personnel arrived and all nearby fire personnel were mobilized to the third stage of response. In the process, two crew members were rescued from the tail. The initial evolution was completed in 46 minutes, and the accident recovery continued afterwards.

[Anchor]
But the plane said that the airport announced the possibility of a bird collision.

[Reporter]
I briefly explained it while looking at the graphic earlier. I'll tell you by time zone according to the explanation. At 8:54 a.m. yesterday, the plane that had an accident at 8:54 a.m. tried to land at 8:54 a.m. and took off again. It's called Bokbok. And three minutes later, as I told you at 57 minutes, I receive information from the control tower that there is a tide. But two minutes later, the coordinator sent a Mayday request, a distress signal. Four minutes later, around 9:03 a.m., the final middle stone happened. Then, the question remains why you did the double act in this process. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport explains that there is only a presumption that there may have been difficulties in controlling the bird due to the collision. Therefore, landing gear failure and bird collision are cited as the cause of the accident.

[Anchor]
I think we need to find out the cause, and what is the exact model of the plane that crashed today?

[Reporter]
Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 is a Boeing 737-800 manufactured by Boeing in the United States. It is confirmed that it has been 15 years of age, but it is difficult to say that it is old. Information on the airliner's captain and vice-captain was also provided at yesterday's briefing by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The captain said he took the current position in March 2019, and the flight time was scheduled to be about 6823 hours. And it is understood that the assistant manager has about 1650 hours of flight time and that he took over his current position in February of last year.

[Anchor]
In terms of flight time, neither the captain nor the assistant captain seem to have flown for a short time, but the accident has caused a lot of casualties. It's hard to recognize the shape of an airplane, so please tell me in detail.

[Reporter]
As you said, the plane crashed and was damaged so much that it was difficult to recognize except for the tail, and it seems that the damage to life increased as the explosion occurred in the process. At that time, six crew members, 175 passengers, and 181 total were on board, of which 179 were found to have died. As for the gender of the dead, 84 males, 85 females, and 10 females were confirmed, respectively. As of 9:06 last night, 88 people were identified. The rescued two, a man in his 30s and a female crew member, were conscious at the time of discovery but were taken to a hospital with injuries. Both were found to have been on the tail of the plane.

[Anchor] I think the statements of 2 crew members who were rescued
will be very important in the future, what is your current health status?

[Reporter]
Last night, a male flight attendant held a briefing at Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. The hospital said the male flight attendant fractured the thoracic spine and ribs, and the progress is being intensively monitored in the intensive care unit due to the possibility of aftereffects. It is said that this man told the medical staff about the accident to this extent that he was rescued when he woke up. The hospital said it did not ask specific priority questions regarding the accident situation as it determined it would not help the recovery. A female flight attendant also suffered a head injury, which was said to have left behind a sudden explosive roar, saying it looked like the plane was crashing. These statements are expected to help determine the cause of the accident.

[Anchor]
Currently, the identification of the dead has not yet been confirmed and it seems to be in progress.

[Reporter]
That's right. As I mentioned earlier, 88 of the 179 dead have been identified. They are identified by fingerprints, but in some cases, it is difficult to collect fingerprints, so we are trying to identify them through DNA matching. It can be said that the identification is completed only after the final confirmation process is completed through DNA comparison of bereaved families. Police held an afternoon briefing and said they had taken all the DNA from the dead. DNA from bereaved families is also being collected, and the results of this contrast are expected to come out in order when the day comes.

[Anchor]
Identification should be thorough, but first of all, passengers go through identification once when boarding. So I think the overall and overall understanding is in place, but most of the passengers are residents of Gwangju?

[Reporter]
Let's finish it. It was found that most of the residents in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do were residents. Gwangju Metropolitan City has the largest number of residents with 81, Jeollanam-do Province has 76 residents, other residents and Thais, and there are 6 crew members. Among them, there were public officials, including five from the Jeollanam-do Office of Education and three from Hwasun-gun. And it was found that there were also three students in Jeollanam-do, so the Jeonnam Office of Education has set up an accident countermeasure headquarters and is trying to find out if there are any additional students on board.

[Anchor]
Then, how is the accident scene being dealt with now?

[Reporter]
The recovery of the dead has been completed, but on-site activities continue. This is because we need to find belongings such as identification cards that will help us identify ourselves. Until tomorrow's dawn, the field training activities are expected to continue, and when the day comes, the related agencies will also conduct a joint inspection.

[Anchor]
What is the government's move in dealing with the accident?

[Reporter]
Acting President Choi Sang-mok visited the Central Disaster and Safety Situation Room in the Seoul Government Complex at 9:50 a.m. shortly after hearing the news of the accident. Therefore, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters was operated, and after that, the acting Minister of Public Administration and Security, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the head of the fire department, and the head of the National Police Agency were instructed to mobilize all available equipment and manpower to save lives. After that, I received a briefing on the accident in the situation room and immediately moved to the Muan Airport accident site to examine the site. And soon after, Muan, Jeollanam-do, was declared a special disaster area. If it is declared a special disaster area, it can receive emergency measures, disaster relief, and financial support necessary for recovery, and 50% of the damage recovery cost will be funded by the government. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance, a ministry in charge of economic affairs, has decided to operate a "Safety Accident Response and Support Task Force" to share information between ministries and implement follow-up procedures such as budget input following the declaration of a special disaster area.

[Anchor]
As you mentioned earlier, the passenger plane in the accident belongs to Jeju Air, so how is the airline's position regarding this?

[Reporter]
Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae issued an apology at a hotel in Seoul at 2 p.m. yesterday. Regardless of the cause of the accident, he expressed his apology, saying he felt responsible as CEO. He also said he would make every effort to support the bereaved families. However, the airline said there was no accident history of the plane in the accident, and there were no signs of abnormalities in the results of regular maintenance. Chairman Jang Young-shin of Aekyung Group, the parent company of Jeju Air, also opened his door. We express our condolences and condolences to the victims of this accident, and we sincerely apologize to the bereaved families. At the same time, he promised that he would do his best to spare all support at the group level.

[Anchor]
How are the police currently moving?

[Reporter]
The police formed an investigation headquarters. The Jeonnam Police Agency, which is the police agency in charge of the jurisdiction, formed an investigation headquarters related to Muan aircraft. There are 264 people with Officer Na Won-oh as the head of the headquarters. He said he was in charge of accident management and prompt identification of the dead, and that he would provide additional 131 scientific investigators and medical examiners, especially to confirm the personal information of the dead. In the future, we plan to investigate the cause of the accident with the Air Railroad Accident Investigation Committee of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. In addition, the police issued an emergency in A-ho in the Muan area where the accident occurred. By issuing an emergency in the adjacent Hampyeong and Mokpo areas, all related areas have entered an emergency work system.

[Anchor]
The police have formed an investigation headquarters and if so, what is the situation with the prosecution?

[Reporter]
The prosecution also formed an investigation headquarters. The Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office has formed an accident countermeasure headquarters with the chief of the district prosecutor's office as the head of the division. In this regard, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office said it ordered the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office to respond in cooperation with related agencies to quickly support victims and their bereaved families and thoroughly identify the cause of the accident.

[Anchor]
There are now predictions that it could take years to determine the cause of the accident, so what questions do the authorities need to solve in the future?

[Reporter]
There are a lot of things. As I mentioned earlier, the aircraft first attempted to land and then took off again, and this reason seems to need to be clarified. In addition, if you look at the report video that came into us, the accident appears to have attempted to land the fuselage without the landing gear operating, and various questions are raised about this. First of all, we need to check the exact facts to see if the landing gear is not working. In this regard, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said there are usually cases where there is no correlation between engine failure and non-operation of landing gear, and it seems necessary to check exactly what other parts of the aircraft have gone wrong. Regarding the flight process, there are questions about whether it was too urgent to make sufficient preparations by communicating with the airport before landing the fuselage, but it seems to have to be resolved. Regarding the airport, there is a question of whether the structure is made of concrete, so the impact of the accident has been increased. Police and other investigative agencies are expected to comprehensively investigate these questions.

[Anchor]
If so, I think it will be essential to analyze flight records.

[Reporter]
That's right. to make a swift landing in the absence of virtually braking force As it is an accident, it seems that the question will be solved only by analyzing the flight record device precisely. In particular, when the aircraft lands, it is estimated that it landed from the middle part, not the end of the runway, and in this regard, an analysis of the communication is urgently needed. As there was also a notification from the control tower regarding bird movement, it is also necessary to check whether bird eradication activities have been carried out properly. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has secured flight recorders and voice recorders in this regard, and will begin analyzing them. A joint investigation with manufacturer Boeing will also be conducted to investigate the defects in the aircraft. However, given the possibility that the flight recorder may have been damaged, the investigation is expected to take months to as long as years, considering previous aircraft accidents together.

[Anchor]
Is the next official briefing at 10 a.m. today?

[Reporter]
That's right.

[Anchor]
I see. When we get new news, we'll organize it and deliver it to you. I looked into it with Shin Gwi-hye, a reporter from the Ministry of Social Affairs. Thank you.