Global News Podcast - South Korea special: Plane crash kills 179

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

179 people were killed when a plane crashed at Muan International Airport in South Korea. It burst into flames after skidding off the runway and hitting a wall. The only survivors were two members of the flight crew.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. You are bound to devote yourself to the long conflict between the light and the dark. The Dark is Rising, an immersive audio adventure, adapting Susan Cooper's classic fantasy novel into a gripping 12 part family drama. Everything had changed. The dark is rising. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the global news podcast from the BBC world service.

I'm Paul Moss and in this special edition recorded on Sunday the 29th December at 12.30 GMT, we have the latest from Moan Airport in South Korea, where a plane has crashed on landing killing nearly 180 people. The country's acting president has declared a period of national mourning. We also hear from a pilot who tells us why the crew may have had no chance to save the stricken aircraft. Plus, we ask what this accident means for South Korea, a nation already in the midst of turmoil. Looking at footage of the crash at South Korea's Muang Airport, it seems clear the plane was

still intact when it touched down. But it's also clear that something had gone terribly wrong with its undercarriage. The fuselage scrapes along the runway, the pilots apparently unable to keep control. And within seconds you see the Boeing 737 strike a wall and burst into flames. 181 people were on board the flight from Bangkok, most of them thought to be holiday makers, who'd gone for a Christmas break. It was left to an airport official to read out a list

of the dead to family members who'd gathered there. Park Yeon-su, Yang Yoo-jung, Park Yeon-su, Sun Kyung-mi, Yoon Pomo. Only two people escaped from the burning plane, making this the deadliest air accident in South Korea. And establishing exactly what happened may be a challenge, given the extensive damage the aircraft suffered. But there is already speculation about what went wrong, as we heard from the chief of the local Moan fire station,

Lee Jong-hyun, when he spoke at a news conference. LEE JONG-HYUN, Chief, Moan International Airport, Moan Fire Station We are presuming the cause of the accident to be a bird strike or deteriorating weather conditions, and the exact cause will be determined by a further forensic and joint investigation. As a person who has seen the site, I can only say I'm sad. Our correspondent Jean Mackenzie is at Moen International Airport and sent this report. We're at the perimeter of the airport now and this wall just behind us is where the plane crashed when it overshot the runway and just poking up behind us you can see the

blackened charred tail of the plane. This is the only part of the aircraft that is now still intact. The rest is so fractured, so splintered, that the fire service says it is unidentifiable. But just over to the right of me here in the fields we have investigators combing the grasses looking for any remnants of the plane and the passengers. This is the deadliest plane crash that has ever taken place on South Korean soil. It is assumed now that all the passengers have died. The only two people who have been rescued from the plane were two flight attendants who were sitting at the very back

and were able to be taken off quickly, and they have been taken to hospital. The cause of this crash is still unknown. It is reported, it is thought, that the plane's landing gears failed to come down. There are also reports that just before landing, a bird got into the plane's engine gears failed to come down. There are also reports that just before landing, a bird got into the plane's engine and caused a fire there, although we don't have this confirmed,

and there are still big questions about what went wrong. Jeju Air is Korea's most popular budget airline. It flies to destinations all across Asia, and it is a relatively safe airline. This is thought to be the only fatal accident it has had in the almost 20 years it's been operating. And for Koreans, this is just one shock after another. The country is going through an acute political crisis

at the moment after the president was ousted for trying to impose martial law here. And so the acting president, he's only been in office now in charge for 48 hours. So this is a major test for him. He has come to the airport now this afternoon where he is overseeing the recovery operations and offering support to the bereaved families. Jean Mackenzie also at the airport was unicoup of the BBC's Korean service.

She saw hundreds gathered there, still clinging to hope. Even though the authorities have announced there are more than 170 deaths confirmed among 181 passengers, most of them still remain unidentified. So the family here are deeply in sorrow, however, still trying to hear the updates from the authorities. Most of the families are spending nights here waiting for the updates and you can also see the authorities spreading out the foods and drinks to the families. However, most of the families do not seem interested in it and even from far away you can hear many families crying and screaming and falling down to the floor. Yunaku. The plane was one of Boeing's 737-800 aircraft.

The company has said it's in contact with Jeju Air and stands ready to support them. It said in a statement that it extends its deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the incident. Kim E-Bai, the CEO of the airline Jeju, spoke at a press conference. He and his colleagues bowed in a sign of contrition, although they also seemed to be insisting that the plane itself was not at fault. I would like to express my deepest condolences and apologies to the passengers who have passed away due to this accident and to their family members. Jeju Air will make every effort to resolve the situation quickly and to support the family members of the passengers.

In addition, we will do our best with the government to find out the cause of the accident. We have serviced this aircraft in accordance with the maintenance programme and there was no sign of anything unusual with this plane." It may be unclear why the Boeing 737's undercarriage wasn't properly lowered when the plane touched down, but whatever the cause, a serious accident was almost inevitable once that happened, according to a former 737 pilot Alastair Rosenschein, who spoke to my colleague Lucy Gray. It's near impossible to control an aircraft on the landing roll as the speed reduces with the gear up, so that would explain why the aircraft skidded off to one side.

The reports of a bird strike could result in a worst case scenario and loss of hydraulics as well if both engines are severely damaged. But what happened prior to the video of this aircraft landing, we don't fully know yet. They have already recovered either the flight deck data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. They're known as two black boxes and their reports have covered those. So it is fairly certain that they'll be able to get down to the bottom of this and find out what happened and hopefully try and prevent it from happening again. But bird strikes, if it was a bird strike, they are

unpredictable. They can happen pretty much anywhere in the world. And as a pilot, what are you able to do if you don't have any landing gear in terms of any kind of control of the aircraft? Well, first of all, the aircraft will fly normally if the gear doesn't come down. That isn't the issue. The issue will be the actual touchdown of the runway. So what you want to do is choose an airfield with as long a runway as possible. The other thing is, there's a time frame here. If the pilots had lost power on their engines due to a bird strike, then there'll be no

time at all. They'll be coming down and landing pretty much immediately. The other thing is you don't want any rescue vehicles anywhere near the runway during this landing of a gear up aircraft because the aircraft will be difficult to control and will almost, there's a very strong likelihood it will depart the runway, in other words go off to the right or the left. It sounds pretty catastrophic during the flying phase of the flight in addition to the disaster during the landing.

I mean, watching the video it looks like they've made a successful touchdown and that they are traveling down the runway and that looks like the pilots have done a very good job up to that point and then as the aircraft slows they will no longer have control, directional control of the aircraft and so they really are in the lap of the gods at that point. Alastair Rosenschein. South Korea is obviously still digesting what happened. But this is a country which was already in turmoil. There's been the declaration of martial law by one president. Street protests only this weekend demanding that his stand-in successor resign. And there's Donald Trump about to take office, having said South Korea must pay for the nearly 30,000 US soldiers

stationed there. Or else, he's hinted, they might come home. The death of so many people in an airplane crash would obviously be a blow to any country. But this accident has come at a particularly difficult time for South Korea, as Hyeong-jung Kim, a BBC journalist in the capital Seoul, told me. South Korean society is in deep shock right now and there was an economic and political crisis happening right now and because of this accident, all of the South Korean people are mourning. And the people are also considering not to organize the ongoing protest and they are

now cancelling all the rallies. And then the decision was made to join in mourning and paying tribute to the victims of the Jeju Air passenger plane crash. And also the authorities are also considering cancelling new year events that was organized for the end of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by James Piper, the producer was Isabella Jewell.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. For just as long as Hollywood has been Tinseltown, there have been suspicions about what lurks behind the glitz and glamour. Concerns about radical propaganda in the motion pictures. And for a while, those suspicions grew into something much bigger and much darker. Are you a member of the Communist Party? Or have you ever been a member of

the Communist Party? I'm Una Chaplin and this is Hollywood Exiles. It's about a battle for the political soul of America, and the battlefield was Hollywood.