The crash of the company’s plane claimed 179 lives.
The CEO of South Korea’s low-cost airline Jeju Air is banned from leaving the country. This was announced on Thursday by the police investigating the Sunday crash of one of these airlines’ planes in the city of Muan, which claimed 179 lives on December 29. TASR informs about it with reference to the report of the AFP agency.
Jeju Air wants to reduce the number of flights and increase operational safety
Jeju Air said Thursday that it plans to cut domestic flights as early as next week and international flights from the third week of January in response to growing safety concerns, according to Jonhap. It has previously announced plans to reduce the number of flights by ten to 15 percent by March in order to increase operational safety.
Only two people survived Sunday’s accident of Jeju Air’s Boeing 737-800 with 181 people on board. The worst air disaster in South Korea occurred at Muan Airport in the southwest of the country, where the plane skidded off the runway while landing without the landing gear extended, crashed into a wall behind it, and exploded.
One of the causes of the accident could be a failure of the Boeing landing gear. During the investigation, it was revealed that the crashed plane had made 13 flights in the 48 hours before the accident.
Jeju Air has also been criticized for deficiencies in aircraft maintenance. In response to the criticism, its management representative Song Kjung-hun said on Thursday that the airline has had enough qualified technicians in the past to give them the opportunity to continue their employment even after retirement. According to him, however, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a period when the standard recommended by the Ministry of Transport, representing 12 technicians per aircraft, was not met.
