By Hyunsu Yim
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s transport ministry stated on Wednesday that it could take away the concrete embankment put in at Muan Worldwide Airport following final month’s Jeju Air crash, its deadliest home air catastrophe.
Whereas investigators are nonetheless probing what triggered Jeju Air flight 7C2216 to crash, together with reported fowl strikes, specialists have stated the huge berm that supported navigation antennas on the finish of the runway possible made the catastrophe extra lethal than it may need been in any other case.
In a few of the first widespread reforms introduced for the reason that crash, authorities stated they are going to make new foundations or different changes for comparable antennas at seven airports together with Muan and Jeju Worldwide Airport – one among South Korea’s busiest – which are both under floor stage or straightforward to interrupt.
The choice got here after reviewing the buildings housing the antennas that information landings on the airports throughout the nation referred to as Instrument Touchdown Techniques (ILS), or a “localiser”.
“Muan Worldwide Airport plans to utterly take away the prevailing concrete and reinstall the localiser in a fragile construction,” the ministry stated in a press release.
The Dec. 29 crash killed 179 individuals, with solely two crew members seated close to the rear of the Boeing (NYSE:) 737-800 plane surviving.
Video footage confirmed the passenger jet slamming into the construction and exploding after touchdown at excessive velocity with out gear down and skidding previous the tip of the runway.
The runway design has additionally been criticised as failing to satisfy security requirements, prompting authorities to increase post-runway security zones which are freed from main obstacles.
The transport ministry stated it’s going to guarantee a 240-metre (787-ft) lengthy runway security space in any respect airports to satisfy all related laws. The world at Muan airport was about 200 metres lengthy earlier than the crash.
Police stated individually that Son Chang-wan, the previous president of the state-run Korea Airports Company who was in workplace when the construction at Muan airport was renovated, was discovered lifeless in his house on Tuesday of an obvious suicide.
Son was not below investigation over the aircraft crash and had not been summoned for questioning over it, a police official stated.
A shutdown of Muan airport has been prolonged till April 18, the transport ministry stated on Saturday.
