After the fatal Jeju Air plane crash took 179 lives in its wake on Sunday, the two remaining survivors, who were cabin crew members, revealed their first words after the tragic accident.
The disastrous incident took place in Muan, 180 miles south of Seoul, South Korea, where the plane skidded off the runway, slammed into a concrete barrier, and burst into huge flames. Officials dubbed it one of South Korea’s worst aviation disasters.
One survivor’s first words
Thirty-year-old Lee Mo, who was a male flight attendant, reportedly woke up disoriented in Ewha Women’s University Hospital in Seoul. According to the doctors supervising his case, his first words when he woke up were, “What happened?” And “Why am I here?”
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Mo’s injuries
Despite wearing his seatbelt before the crash, Mo, who was in charge of passenger service at the back of the plane, suffered a fractured left shoulder and head injuries.
At first, he was sent to a hospital in Mokpo, around 190 miles south of Seoul, but then he got transferred to another hospital in the capital.
Koo, the second survivor
The 25-year-old female flight attendant is currently being treated at Asan Medical Center in eastern Seoul. The only details she remembers are smoke coming out of one of the plane’s engines, which then exploded, and officials didn’t have enough time to ask more about the accident.
Koo’s injuries
Koo suffered scalp lacerations and ankle fractures. In addition, she’s undergoing an abdominal diagnosis. Unlike Mo, the injuries she sustained pose no major threat to her life. Mo, on the other hand, maybe at risk of suffering from full-body paralysis.
They were both rescued from the plane’s tail
The plane was damaged beyond repair, except for the tail, where the two survivors were found. According to the New York Times, an official in charge of search and rescue operations at Muan International Airport said that the crash was so bad that the tail was the only recognizable part.
The aftermath
This crash is the worst since the 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed over 200 people. Only 141 victims out of the 179 victims have been identified, leaving many devastated families demanding answers from authorities. All bodies have been moved to a temporary morgue.
Officials are investigating
Investigation agencies currently have hold of the bodies. They will be ready to transfer the bodies and contact the families once the autopsies are done. As for the victims’ belongings, they are currently being picked up from the runway and confiscated as part of the investigation.
Families are grieving
Jeon Je-young, whose daughter Mi-sook was one of the victims of the plane crash, still can’t believe what happened. His daughter was only in her mid-40s. He believes the pilots have no choice but to do what they have done, but the whole incident is unfathomable to him.
Experts weigh in
A video shows the plane hitting a bird before it circled the runway and tried to land with its flaps up. Experts say that this indicates that the aircraft suffered from hydraulic failure, and the landing gear didn’t deploy, which was one of the factors that led to the tragic crash.
It was the concrete wall
Leading air safety expert David Learmount told Sky News that the concrete wall present at the end of the runway was “verging on criminal.” If the concrete wall wasn’t there, he suggested that the plane “would have hit through a perimeter fence, travelled over a road and likely stopped in an adjacent field.”
