South Korea completes flight recorder decoding and search at crash site

In South Korea, search operations have been completed at the site of the Jeju Air plane crash, where 179 people died.

This is reported by Yonhap.

The fire service, police and the national forensic team completed a final search in and around the tail section on Saturday, January 4 — the only part of the plane that was intact after the crash.

The bodies of all 179 victims have been found, 151 of them have already been handed over to loved ones and relatives. Another 25 bodies, excluding the family of three, will be handed over to relatives by the end of the day.

Authorities say the likelihood of finding any remains or belongings is now low. In parallel with the search efforts, an investigation team conducted an investigation at the crash site.

South Koreaʼs Ministry of Transportation also said it had completed the transcription of a two-hour audio recording from the cockpit voice recorder, which will be handed over to the US National Transportation Safety Board on Monday.

• A Jeju Air plane crashed while landing at Muan International Airport on December 29, 2024. All 179 passengers and two pilots died. Investigators investigating the cause of South Koreaʼs deadliest civil aviation disaster will focus on a bird strike and landing gear failure.
• South Korean authorities have begun a special inspection of 101 Boeing 737-800 aircraft — all of them operated in the country. On the same day, in addition to the plane crash, another incident occurred with this aircraft — a Boeing 737-800 operating on another flight had a problem with its landing gear. There were no injuries.

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