Meanwhile authorities have officially launched an investigation into Sunday’s tragic plane crash at Muan International Airport with a search and seizure warrant in execution starting today.
Kim Do-yeon has more.
Police, on Thursday morning, executed a search and seizure warrant for their investigation into the Jeju Airline crash.
Three locations are listed on the warrant: offices at Muan International Airport, the Muan Branch Office of the Busan Regional Office of Aviation, and the Seoul office of Jeju Air.
The charge indicated on the warrant is death and injury by occupational negligence, but a specific alleged suspect is yet to be named.
Until now, police invested time in identifying the remains of the victims but all 179 have now been identified.
Now, the investigation team is steering towards finding the reasons behind the tragedy including aircraft operations and maintenance.
At the same time, the government’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board and experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing have opened an office at Muan International Airport to investigate the crash as well.
According to the Transportation Ministry, the conversion of recorded data from the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder into audio format has been finished, which is earlier than expected and the data will be transferred to the U.S. to be looked at.
The Ministry assured that investigation results will be transparent.
“Additionally, there are concerns that the investigation might yield biased results since it is being conducted in the United States. However, as I mentioned yesterday, investigators from South Korea’s accident investigation committee will be participating in the investigation as well.”
Earlier in the day, Acting President and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok also addressed the crash issues.
Apart from further safety checks across the nation for aircraft and airport operations, he addressed concerns over protecting the victims and their families.
“According to media reports, indiscriminate posts, malicious comments, false and manipulated information, and provocative videos about the victims and their families are being shared on social media. We earnestly ask everyone to refrain from actions that cause pain to the bereaved families and other well-meaning individuals involved.”
He called on law enforcement authorities to monitor the situation and that there would be legal repercussions for those who commit such malicious actions.
As for honoring the victims the first burial of a victim was held early Thursday morning with more victims leaving for their resting places throughout the day.
So far, a total of 30 of the victims have been transferred to their families.
Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News.
Source : Arirang TV, https://www.arirang.com/news/view?id=279556
Arirang TV(public institution's name)'s public work is used according to KOGL