South Korean police searched Thursday the offices and airport where Sunday’s deadly plane crash occurred, within the framework of a series of raids aimed at determining who is responsible for the catastrophe.
Investigators from the Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency searched the Busan Regional Aviation Administration office in Muan County, as well as Muan International Airport and the Jeju Air Co. office in Seoul starting at 9 p.m. the morning, a spokesperson for the police office reported by telephone.
The coordinated raids came after police launched their own investigation into the fatal crash of the Boeing 737-800 plane operated by Jeju Air.
He plane was attempting to make an emergency landing on Sunday when it skidded on its belly off the runway and exploded after hitting a structure, killing 179 of the 181 people on board.
The accident occurred a few minutes after the airport control tower warned the pilot of the risk of hitting birds.. The police investigation aims to discover the cause of the country’s deadliest air disaster and assign responsibility, according to the spokesperson. Yonhap News previously reported the investigations.
Experts have questioned the airport’s design, especially the concrete embankment at the end of the runway. The structure was built to hold the airport’s locator antennas, used to guide planes when landing. Transportation authorities have stated that the equipment was built in accordance with local standards.
Concerns are also emerging about Jeju Air’s financial situation, something company officials downplayed on Thursday.
Jeju Air dismissed concerns about a liquidity risk from the accident and, Although the company is facing more cancellations than before, it is still receiving some new reservations, a spokesperson said.
The airline had about 260 billion won ($177 million) of prepaid airline tickets at the end of September, according to a November report. Jeju Air plans to reduce its winter flight schedule by 10% to 15%, and the cuts could begin next week, according to the spokesperson.
Aside from the police investigation, the Korean Ministry of Transportation is leading the civil investigation into the crash in collaboration with officials from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing Co. These efforts are focused on the analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, two key pieces of evidence recovered from the wreckage of the plane.
Investigators have extracted all data from the voice recorder, Joo Jong-wan, a senior official at the Ministry of Transportation, said at a briefing on Thursday. The device contains recordings of the pilot’s communications and engine noises over the past two hours, according to authorities.
The flight data recorder, which monitors parameters such as altitude, speed and heading, will be sent to the United States for repair as it was damaged during the accident.
Korean investigators have so far been unable to locate the engine in the plane’s wreckage, which is likely another crucial piece of evidence, Joo said.
One of the issues currently being studied by the Ministry of Transport’s investigation is why why the plane’s landing gear does not appear to have deployed before the control tower issued its bird strike warning. The maintenance records of the 101 Boeing 737-800s operating in the country are also being checked.
