THE remains of victims killed in a horror plane crash in South Korea were left on the floor of the hangar, families claim.
Families of the 179 individuals who lost their lives in the tragic incident at Muan International Airport are distressed and feeling neglected by the authorities regarding the handling of the recovered bodies.
Some 174 victims have so far been identified, with the final five bodies still undergoing DNA testing.
Due to the severe impact of the crash, where the plane burst into flames upon colliding with a concrete wall, many of the bodies were extensively damaged, complicating the identification process for the authorities.
But officials have been accused of “neglecting” the remains of victims and leaving bodies on the floor of the hangar in the aftermath of the crash.
Park Han-shin, head of the bereaved family council of the Jeju Airplane disaster, lashed out at authorities for failing to quickly install freezers.
He said: “Unlike the government promised, the victims’ remains are being neglected.
Despite assurances from the government about setting up facilities like freezers to preserve the remains, there were delays in their installation, resulting in the bodies being left unattended on the hangar floor.
“The staff accompanied by the deputy prime minister reported that the freezer installation was going well, but this was not true”
Officials are believed to have recovered more than 600 body parts as they deal with the aftermath of the horror crash.
Dozens of grieving relatives have been camped at the airport since the crash, desperately waiting to see the bodies of their loved ones.
One heartbroken man at the scene asked police: “Can you promise that they will be put back together?”
Many of those on the flight were returning from Christmas holidays in Thailand.
A haunting photo shows the empty desks and calendar marking days off over Christmas in a South Korean office where five co-workers planned their break.
The five female colleagues, who flew to Bangkok to celebrate promotions, were among the 179 people killed.
Three generations of the same family also died.
A man in his 60s told Korean Yonhap news agency that his sister-in-law, daughter, her husband and their young children had died.
All those on board the flight are thought to have been Korean except for two Thai nationals -one of whom was a 22-year-old woman called Sirithon Chaue.
Tragically, her mother was waiting for her at the airport when the Boeing 737-800 crashed landed.
Five of those killed were children under the age of ten.
Among them was a three-year-old boy, who was killed alongside his parents as they returned from their first family holiday.
Kang Ko, 43, and his wife Jin Lee Seon, 37, had shared pictures on social media from their trip – including one of the toddler looking out the plane window.
Serious questions are now being asked over if the incident could have been avoided.
All but two of the 181 people on board were killed in the tragedy that has left both South Korea and the world reeling.
Investigators from the US and South Korea are desperately trying to piece together what caused the harrowing crash – one of the worst aviation disasters in the country’s history.
The president has ordered an overhaul of its aviation industry in the wake of the killer crash.
The plane’s two black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, are being examined.
Flight data and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from the wreckage – but authorities have warned it might take months to complete a probe into the crash.
Police are also investigating an email claiming that the Jeju Air passenger plane accident was their doing.
What was the concrete wall?
QUESTIONS over why a concrete wall had been built near the runway have been raised by aviation experts.
The jet careered off the runway Muan International Airport before smashing into the wall and bursting into flames.
The concrete structure stands about 250m off the end of the runway.
It is 4m high, with the bottom half covered by a mound of dirt and was reportedly only erected last year.
It holds the instrument landing system which helps pilots land when visibility is poor or at night.
Usually, these systems are placed on collapsible structures at airports.
David Learmount of Flight International Magazine pinned the tragedy on a navigation system, known as a localizer, that was placed in the runway’s overrun.
He told Sky: “I don’t know what standards they think were appropriate but other airports do not put the instrument landing system antennae in a concrete structure.
“If that hadn’t been there everybody would be alive now.”
He added that the structures are usually collapsible in other airports rather than being concrete to prevent fatal collisions.
The passenger plane, which had flown in from Bangkok, is thought to have hit a bird on its approach to Muan International Airport – crippling the plane’s landing gear.
Video shows it approaching the airport when its right engine was struck by what appeared to be a bird.
The collision may have forced the pilot – who is reported to have made a mayday call shortly after the strike – to shut down the damaged engine as he wrestled to control it in the sky.
Several attempts to land were aborted by the pilot before a final decision was made to attempt it.
The aircraft quickly slammed into the tarmac as the pilot tried to land safely.
But the pilot’s heroic landing was all in vain as it continued to speed off the end of the runway before smashing into a concrete wall.
The plane instantly exploded after hitting the structure at the end of the 2,800-metre runway.
The impact is believed to have set off the fireball by rupturing fuel tanks.
Rescue teams raced to the scene and, incredibly, pulled two survivors – both crew members – from the rear of the blazing wreck.
Tragically everyone else on board – 175 passengers and four crew members – died in the flames.
