South Korean police raided Muan International Airport and Jeju Air’s office just days after the airline’s horror crash that killed 179 passengers.
On Thursday, the Jeonanam Provincial Police launched a search and seizure operation into the southwest South Korea airport and the airline’s office in Seoul.
Authorities also swarmed the Muan office of the Busan Regional Office of Aviation, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Police said in a statement to AFP: ‘In relation to the plane accident that occurred on December 29, a search and seizure operation is being conducted from 9 a.m. on January 2 at three locations.’
Police issued a search warrant for professional negligence resulting in death, according to officials.
The search comes after a 15-year-old Jeju Airline Boeing 737-800 was torn apart and burst into flames across the Muan Airport runway on Sunday.
A total of 179 were killed that day when a plane carrying 181 passengers skidded off a runway as it landed and smashed into a wall.
A plane carrying 181 people has crashed into a wall at at Muan International Airport in South Korea, the Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday
Rescue workers take part in a salvage operation at the site where an aircraft crashed after it went off the runway at Muan International Airport, in Muan, South Korea – December 29, 2024
People listen at Muan International Airport as an official discloses the additional names of passengers who died in the horror plane crash
South Korea’s emergency office said the jet’s landing gear seemingly malfunctioned, with a bird striking the aircraft among the possibilities of what caused the crash.
There were wails in the airport’s arrivals hall as families wept loudly when a medic announced the names of 22 dead passengers. They were identified by their fingerprints.
The death toll includes at least 82 men and 83 women, according to the National Fire Agency.
Two crew members, a man and a woman, were miraculously rescued from the tail section of the burning plane.
The flaming crash was one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history.