Families of victims of the Dec. 29 Jeju Air crash [Newsis]
Families of victims of the Dec. 29 Jeju Air crash [Newsis]

Families of victims of the Dec. 29 Jeju Air crash have condemned the referral of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport civil servants to prosecutors — over the concealment of a regulatory violation involving a localizer at Muan International Airport — as a "scapegoating" investigation.

Kim Yu-jin, head of the bereaved families' council, held a press conference at Muan International Airport on Wednesday and said the referral of only working-level officials was "merely the prologue to how the state concealed and controlled a disaster that killed 179 people."

The families said it was "obvious to anyone" that the exclusion of the then-minister and vice minister — who were in the approval chain — from the referral was the result of a scapegoating investigation. They demanded accountability for those who ordered the drafting of false official documents despite knowing the localizer had not been installed in compliance with regulations, and called for a full investigation into whether the concealment was organized.

They also urged investigators to "clearly establish the fundamental causes of the disaster, including poor bird-strike management and aircraft defects," and to "rigorously investigate not only the civil servants who conveyed false information but all those who contributed to the conditions that caused the disaster."

The families further questioned whether a genuine investigation was still possible nearly 20 months after the crash, and called on the government to fulfill the president's directives — including a review of the remains-recovery manual, strict accountability for failures in the initial search response, and transparent disclosure of information about the disaster.

The special investigation unit of the Korean National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters referred seven Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport civil servants to prosecutors on Tuesday on charges of fabricating and using false official documents.

The seven — who served as drafters, reviewers and the overall supervisor of press materials — are accused of preparing and distributing a press release on Dec. 30, 2024, the day after the crash, stating that the localizer at Muan International Airport had been installed in compliance with regulations, even though they knew it had not been.


husn7@heraldcorp.com