bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Grieving mother Lee Hyo-eun returns every weekend to the airport where her daughter and 178 others died last year, desperate for the truth about South Korea’s deadliest airline disaster.
Jeju Air flight 2216 was coming in to land at Muan International Airport from Thailand when it struck a flock of birds and was forced to make a belly landing that sent it crashing into a structure at the end of the runway.
Only two flight attendants seated in the tail section survived.
Lee vividly remembers that day.
Her daughter Ye-won, a cello instructor, had just celebrated her birthday and was due to return from a short holiday in Bangkok.
Lee was planning a welcome dinner when her sister called to ask if Ye-won had landed.
What happened next, she said, was “unbelievable”.
“She was gone when she was at her brightest, in full bloom at 24,” Lee said.

Official findings have pointed to pilot error in explaining why the December 29, 2024 crash happened.
But one year on, Lee and other relatives of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation has been handled.
They are still demanding answers over the key question surrounding the crash: why was there a concrete block at the end of the runway, despite international aviation safety guidelines?
At Muan airport, which has been closed to commercial flights since the crash, families of the victims spend days and nights in and around tents set up in the departure terminal on the second floor.
Blue ribbons symbolising the victims adorn the airport, while letters remembering the dead line the stairways.
The localisers damaged in the crash still stand at the end of the runway, and what appears to be fragments of concrete slabs and pillars are strewn across a field not far away.
Banners draped along the walls criticise the official investigation, with one reading: “A country incapable of protecting citizens is not a country. We demand answers!”


Park In-wook said he is “famous” among the two dozen relatives who choose to return to the airport weekend after weekend.
He lost five loved ones in the crash: his wife, daughter, son-in-law and two young grandchildren.
“In the first days, I felt like I was dreaming,” Park, 70, said.
“Almost a year has passed, but I cannot recall how many days it took to hold my wife’s funeral or the exact date it took place.”
The families’ anger intensified following the release of an interim investigation report in July.
The report emphasised that the pilot decided to shut down the less damaged left engine during the crash, but it did not address the concrete structure housing antenna localisers at the end of the runway.
International aviation safety guidelines state that such navigation structures should be made of frangible, or breakable, material – a recommendation not followed at Muan airport.
A nationwide inspection after the crash found six other airports where localisers were also housed in concrete or steel structures.
Five of them have had their localisers retrofitted with breakable material, while another will be retrofitted next year, Seoul’s transport ministry said.

“The July report highlights the government’s attempt to frame the accident as being caused mainly by pilot error,” Ko Jae-seung, 43, who lost both parents in the crash, said.
“An official investigation should not be about assigning blame to individuals but about examining the systems and conditions that made the accident inevitable,” Ko said.
Ye-won’s mother believes the pilots did everything they could in those crucial moments to save lives on board.
“They managed to land the plane on its belly against all odds, with everyone still alive at that point, without knowing there was a concrete structure ahead of them,” she said at her home in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
“Everyone could have survived – only with injuries – if it had been a mound of earth.”
Her home is decorated with photographs of her late daughter alongside handwritten letters from Ye-won’s friends.
“Thank you for everything. You were a deeply respected and beloved teacher,” the mother of one student wrote.
On a cabinet sit several framed photos from Ye-won’s final days in Bangkok, retrieved from her phone, which was discovered at the crash site.
“Sometimes it feels like she just hasn’t come home from her holiday,” Lee said.
“I find myself wondering when she will.”


A year after South Korea’s Jeju Air crash, the fight for truth continues

Philippines’ struggle for Chinese tourists, flood aid remarks spark ire: 7 Asia highlights

South Korean politicians agree to Unification Church special probe in rare move

China-South Korea ties, Singapore’s ex-FM on Hong Kong rivalry: SCMP daily highlights

South Korea

Lee Hyo-eun reacts outside a memorial altar for victims that includes her daughter, who died in last year’s Jeju Air plane crash at South Korea’s Muan International Airport. Photo: AFP


Ye-won, a cello instructor, was killed in the plane crash last year. Photo: AFP

Family members of the victims of the plane crash attend a rally in Seoul on Saturday. Photo: AFP

The entrance to the Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja’s residence in Gapyeong in South Korea. Photo: AFP

Kim Keon-hee, wife of former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, seen at the Seoul Central District Court in August. Photo: Xinhua

Han Hak-ja, head of the Unification Church, leaves the Seoul Central District Court in September after a hearing to review a warrant for her arrest. Photo: The Korea Times

About 30,000 Unification Church members attending an international mass wedding ceremony in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi province, South Korea in 2018. Photo: The Korea Times

Reporters stand outside the headquarters of Unification Church in Seoul last week after police raided the building. Photo: AFP

Dancing Jeju Air crew stir backlash in South Korea: ‘the funerals were recent’

A playful dance video by Jeju Air flight attendants has drawn backlash online, with commenters saying it comes too soon after a deadly crash that killed 179 people. Photo: Handout

South Korean court rules Yoon’s martial law illegal as walls close in

A television screen shows a file image of Yoon Suk-yeol in court at a railway station in Seoul on Monday. Photo: AP

Former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol arrives at a court in Seoul, South Korea, for questioning in July. Photo: Reuters

A protester wears a sign calling for Yoon to be executed during a rally marking the first anniversary of the martial law decree near the National Assembly in Seoul on December 6. Photo: AFP

A television screen shows a file image of Yoon in court at a railway station in Seoul on Monday. Photo: AP 

South Korea’s top court overhauls handling of martial law trials to regain public trust

South Korea’s Constitutional Court justices attend a hearing in Seoul on Thursday to deliver a verdict on the impeachment of former police chief Cho Ji-ho over his role in former president Yoon Suk-yeol’s failed martial law bid. Photo: EPA

Protesters hold placards demanding the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae near Seoul’s National Assembly on December 6, a year after former president Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration. Photo: AFP

Former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol arrives at a court in Seoul in July to attend a hearing on a special prosecutors’ request to review his arrest warrant in connection with cases stemming from his failed martial law bid. Photo: AP

News

Asia

East Asia

Families of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation into the disaster that killed 179 people has been handled


Families of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation into the disaster that killed 179 people has been handled.


Plane crashes and aviation accidents

A year after South Korea’s Jeju Air crash, the fight for truth continues

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Families of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation into the disaster that killed 179 people has been handled

Families of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation into the disaster that killed 179 people has been handled