Joint probe to begin into Air Busan fire at South Korean airport amid speculation over cause

SEOUL – With speculation rising over the cause of

the fire on an Air Busan aircraft carrying 176 people

late on the evening of Jan 28, the authorities are planning to conduct a joint forensic investigation on Jan 31 with 10 officials from France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), who arrived in South Korea at 3.30pm local time on Jan 30.

The joint investigation team and BEA officials plan to work to identify the starting point and cause of the fire – abiding by the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s regulations, which require the country responsible for manufacturing and designing the aircraft to take part in investigations.

The aircraft involved in the incident was manufactured by France-headquartered Airbus.

Safety checks took place until 2pm on Jan 30. After further discussions with the authorities from the BEA, a joint probe could begin as early as Jan 31 if the site is determined to be safe. Otherwise, the forensic investigations may be pushed back to a later date.

“We will keep all possibilities open to determine the exact cause of the fire,” a ministry official said on Jan 30.

A joint meeting was held on the morning of Jan 30 with the authorities from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, the Busan Fire Headquarters and the National Forensic Service, a day after preliminary inspections of the site were held jointly with ministry officials and the fire agency authorities.

The meeting was held to discuss safety measures in investigating the site, considering the wings of the aircraft were still loaded with 15,875kg of aviation fuel.

The authorities added that it had also recovered black boxes from the aircraft involved in the fire to assist further in investigating the cause behind the accident.

The police are also planning to conduct separate investigations to determine whether the airline is liable for professional negligence by reviewing regulations regarding carry-on luggage acceptance and electric power facilities inside the affected plane.

The exact course of their investigation will be determined based on the results of the joint probe.

At 10.15pm on Jan 28, the Air Busan plane – an Airbus A321-200, bound for Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in Busan – caught fire at its tail before take-off.

According to testimony from passengers on board, a “crackling sound” could be heard from the overhead luggage compartment at the time, followed shortly by smoke.

A portable power bank inside a bag stowed in an overhead compartment was suspected to have sparked the fire, based on testimony by passengers and Air Busan officials.

According to Air Busan’s findings, reported by Joongang Ilbo newspaper, a flight attendant who was on the plane at the time of the fire testified that the fire was “presumed to have originated in the overhead bin above the seats in row 28”.

Though the exact cause of the fire is yet to be identified, an Air Busan official was quoted in local media reports stating that the fire “appears to have been caused by a passenger’s portable power bank, compressed inside the overhead bin”.

This is not the first time a portable power bank has been identified as the possible cause of an aircraft fire in South Korea.

In April 2024, smoke was detected on an Asiana Airlines flight carrying 273 passengers owing to a portable power bank stored inside a passenger’s bag in an overhead compartment.

Once smoke was detected, the flight attendants on board at the time quickly extinguished the overheated device before it caught fire, with no casualties.

Smoke was also detected on another Air Busan flight in December 2024 before take-off owing to a portable power bank being used by a passenger to charge a phone. Flight attendants immediately extinguished the smoke.

After an initial inspection of the site on Jan 29, the ministry said that its preliminary findings showed no indications of terrorism. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK