South Korean president orders full probe into botched recovery at Jeju Air crash site

SEOUL - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung visited the renewed recovery operation site for victims of the Jeju Air passenger jet crash at Muan Airport, calling for a full investigation into shortcomings in the government’s initial recovery efforts.

The visit on May 18 came after victims’ remains were discovered during a reinvestigation launched by the Lee administration in February, more than a year after the country’s deadliest aviation disaster on Dec 29, 2024.

The discovery sparked public outrage, with the earlier recovery operation criticised as careless and incomplete.

Mr Lee expressed frustration over the prolonged recovery process, saying: “The recovery of the remains has been delayed far too long.”

“This renewed search must be conducted thoroughly. Please also examine whether there are problems with the existing manuals,” Mr Lee told officials at the recovery site at Muan Airport in South Jeolla Province.

“It does not appear that the existing manuals were faithfully followed. Please look carefully into the causes as well.”

Mr Lee also instructed officials to explore ways to conduct an objective verification, with assistance from overseas experts, of both the cause of the accident and the delays in recovering the remains.

After bereaved family members called for a full-scale reinvestigation, the government launched a search operation around Muan Airport in mid-April. Led by the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, the operation mobilised about 250 personnel from civilian, government, military and police agencies.

The disaster occurred on Dec 29, 2024, when the Jeju Air Flight 2216 arriving from Bangkok veered off the runway during an emergency landing and exploded after crashing into a concrete structure near the airport perimeter. Of the 181 people on board, 179 were killed, with only two crew members surviving.

Mr Lee paid tribute at a joint memorial altar inside the passenger terminal of Muan Airport, met with bereaved family members, and visited a storage site for victims’ personal belongings at the terminal.

The bereaved families’ association welcomed Mr Lee’s visit to Muan airport through a statement issued on May 18.

The association thanked Mr Lee for his March order to recover victims’ remains and hold those responsible for the botched operation accountable.

“The bereaved families want only the truth to be uncovered and those responsible to be punished,” the association said.

“We told the president that everything now rests with the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, and asked him to order a thorough, no-holds-barred investigation into the complex causes of the disaster.”

The association also welcomed the revision to the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Law, which in 2026 moved the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The change followed criticism that the board, then under the Transport Ministry, could face conflicts of interest in investigating the ministry’s own role in installing and overseeing the runway-end concrete embankment, cited as a key factor that worsened the disaster.

From April 13 to May 8, the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board under the Office for Government Policy Coordination, along with police and military authorities, found 1,257 objects believed to be human remains.

However, the renewed recovery operation near the runway, being carried out as a government-wide effort, was temporarily suspended from May 11 after cadmium, a carcinogenic substance, was detected at some search sites.

Authorities believe the soil may have been contaminated by aviation fuel that leaked into the ground during the passenger aircraft disaster. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK