Families mourn after S Korea plane crash happymamay

The celebratory trip to Thailand was supposed to be a celebration for Maing Ji Soo’s nephew and his two nephews, who were celebrating the end of their university entrance exams.

Instead, it ended in tragedy when all three died on the Jeju Air plane that crash-landed in South Korea on Sunday morning, killing 179 of the 181 people on board.

“I can’t believe the whole family just disappeared,” Maeng, 78, told the BBC.

“My heart hurts so much.”

The family was among those traveling on flight 7C2216 from Bangkok to Muan International Airport, which skidded off the runway after landing and landing. I hit the wall Shortly after 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT) on Sunday.

All passengers on the Boeing 737-800 died, making this the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil.

Four crew members died while two were rescued from the wreckage alive.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that the ages of the 179 passengers ranged between three and 78 years, although most of them were in their forties, fifties, and sixties. Authorities said two Thai citizens were among the dead and the rest were believed to be from South Korea.

Five of the people who died were children under 10 years old, while the youngest passenger, a toddler, was only three years old.

A man in his 60s said five members of his family spanning three generations were on board the plane, including his sister-in-law, his daughter, her husband and their young children, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Many of the passengers were celebrating the Christmas holiday in Thailand and were returning home.

The cousin of one of the victims, Jungluck Dongmani, told BBC Thai that she was “shocked” when she heard the news.

“I had goosebumps. I couldn’t believe it,” Bournevichaya Chalermzin said.

Jungluck spent more than two weeks in Thailand visiting her family and traveling to the northern city of Chiang Mai with her husband.

Father Jeon Ji-young, 71, told Reuters news agency that his daughter Mi Sook, who was identified through her fingerprints, was on her way home after traveling with friends to Bangkok to attend the celebrations.

“My daughter, who is only in her mid-40s, ended up like this,” he said, adding that he last saw her on December 21, when she brought some food and a calendar for the coming year to his house – what would become their life. Last minute together.

Mi Sook leaves behind a husband and a teenage daughter.

“This is unbelievable,” Jeon said.

One woman said that her sister, who was going through difficult times, went to Thailand where life began to improve for her.

“She faced a lot of hardships and traveled because her condition was just starting to improve,” she told Yonhap News Agency.

The two flight attendants who survived the crash were found in the back of the plane, the most intact part of the wreckage.

One of them was a 33-year-old man, surnamed Lee, who was taken to a hospital in Mokpo, about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) south of the airport, but was later transferred to Seoul Ewha Women’s University Hospital in the capital, Yonhap. The news agency reported.

“When I woke up, I had already been saved,” he told doctors at the hospital, according to hospital director Joe Wong, who spoke during a news conference.

The survivor, who suffered multiple fractures, is receiving special care because of the risk of after-effects, including complete paralysis, Joe said.

The other survivor, a 25-year-old flight attendant surnamed Ko, is undergoing treatment at Asan Medical Center in eastern Seoul, Yonhap added.

She suffered head and ankle injuries but is said to be in stable condition.

The exact cause of the disaster is not yet known, but a number of eyewitnesses say they saw that the plane was in trouble before it crashed.

The restaurant’s owner, Im Young Hak, said he initially thought it was an oil tanker accident.

“I went out and saw thick, dark smoke. Then I heard a loud explosion, not from the accident itself. Then there were more explosions – at least seven,” he told Reuters.

“We feel bad when incidents happen on the other side of the world, but this happened here. It hurts.”

Yoo Jae-young, 41, who was staying near the airport, told local media that he saw a spark on the right wing shortly before the accident.

Kim Yong-Cheol (70 years old) said that the plane failed to land at first and tried again.

He added that he saw “black smoke rising into the sky” after hearing a “strong explosion,” Yonhap reported.

One of the firefighters who was sent to the scene told Reuters that he had never seen anything “on this scale” before.

BBC reporters on the ground said the sounds of family members crying echoed through the hall on Sunday evening, while others expressed their anger at the time it took to identify the bodies.

Hundreds remain at Muan International Airport waiting to identify their loved ones.

Some have given DNA samples to officials to help identify victims’ bodies, and the government has offered funeral services and temporary housing for bereaved families.

A period of national mourning was also declared for the next seven days.

But for all the loved ones of those who died, many questions remain – not least the cause of the accident, and whether it could have been avoided.

“The water near the airport is not deep,” Jeon told Reuters.

“(There are) softer fields than this cement runway. Why couldn’t the pilot land there instead?”

He says his daughter Mi Sook was about to go home, so he saw no reason to call and leave a final message.

“She was about to go home — she thought she was going home.”

Additional reporting by BBC Thai’s Tanyaporn Puathong