A lack of guidelines and insufficient oversight at the scene delayed recovery of the remains of victims in the 2024 Jeju Air plane crash, a government investigation showed Thursday. This file photo shows a police forensic team at the Muan International Airport crash site on Dec. 29, 2024. File Photo by Yonhap/EPA-EFE
The lack of specific guidelines on the recovery of remains, coupled with insufficient oversight at the scene, led to the failure to fully recover the remains of victims in the 2024 Jeju Air plane crash for more than a year, a government investigation showed Thursday.
The Office for Government Policy Coordination said that the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board also violated related regulations in the course of keeping pieces of the wreckage mixed with remains in burlap bags at unroofed open spaces, and failed to respond immediately to requests from bereaved families for a reinvestigation.
Announcing the results of a one-month investigation, the office said it has referred 12 related officials for disciplinary measures — four from the transport ministry, six from the accident investigation board, one from police and the other from a firefighting agency.
The Jeju Air crash on Dec. 29, 2024, killed 179 passengers and crew members when the jet made an emergency belly landing at Muan International Airport, about 290 kilometers south of Seoul, and erupted into flames after crashing into a concrete mound. It was the deadliest plane crash in South Korea’s history.
In recent months, remains of the victims were found one after another, more than a year after the crash, after the government launched a reinvestigation into the plane’s wreckage in February in an effort to help determine what exactly caused the tragedy that killed 179 people.
Bereaved families expressed outrage that the bone pieces and other remains had been left unattended for such a long period of time, some in ton bags or gunny sacks, prompting the transport minister to offer an apology and President Lee Jae Myung to order a thorough investigation into how that happened and who is responsible.
A full-scale operation has since been launched to comb again through the crash site and collect any additional remains and items belonging to the victims, and hundreds of additional pieces of remains and other items believed to be belonging to the victims have been recovered so far.
“The investigation has confirmed that the remains of the victims were not fully recovered due to insufficient commanding and oversight by the firefighting and police authorities in a situation where there are no specific guidelines on search and recovery measures in a plane accident,” said Kim Young-su, first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, during a press briefing.
Noting that the absence of proper manuals led to the bungling of the initial search and recovery efforts, Kim said the government will have the National Fire Agency and other government offices upgrade related regulations to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
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