Taipei Airport Safety Confirmed After Deadly South Korea Crash

TaiwanPlus News

As South Korea tries to quickly identify bodies two days after a dramatic Jeju Air crash in southwestern Muan Airport killed 179 passengers and crew members, Taiwan and other countries in the region are going through airport safety features amid concerns.

Transcript

00:00Authorities in South Korea are still racing to identify bodies, two days after the shocking

00:11crash of a Jeju Air passenger plane at Muan Airport, the country's worst ever air travel

00:17disaster.

00:19The passenger plane, traveling from Thailand to the airport in South Korea's southwest,

00:24killed 179 people, all but two people on board.

00:34Mourning family members can only pray and wait for all victims to be found, with some

00:40urging officials to hire more people to aid the effort, a test for the country's acting

00:45President Choi Sang-mok, here at a memorial for the victims, who took office less than

00:5148 hours before the crash.

01:09Questions remain about what exactly happened, after the pilot made a Mayday call reporting

01:15a bird strike.

01:17The Boeing 737-800 aircraft then made an emergency belly landing, without its gear

01:23and wheels, skidding and then slamming into a concrete wall, almost 250 metres after the

01:30end of the runway.

01:32Muan Airport was known to have a runway nearly a kilometre shorter than most international

01:38airports.

01:39It really has to be a series of catastrophic events that lead to such a high loss of life.

01:49It is incredibly unusual.

01:52Following the deadly crash, concerns in neighbouring Taiwan arose, over the safety of its own Songshan

01:58Airport.

01:59Though not the country's main air hub, Songshan is right in the capital city, with a runway

02:04that's 2,600 metres long, 200 metres shorter than that at Muan Airport.

02:12But Taiwan's Transport Safety Authority has reassured that Songshan's safety features

02:17are in good order, and explained that the end of the runway is fitted with a crushable

02:22material called Engineered Materials Arresting Systems, or EMAS, designed to stop aircraft

02:29that overrun.

02:30EMAS is a crushed concrete structure, which means that when the aircraft hits the crushed

02:39concrete at a certain speed, the engine and the fuselage won't be damaged.

02:46So the crushed concrete will disintegrate into powder.

02:50The material was installed following a 2004 incident at the airport, where a TransAsia

02:56Airways plane overran the runway, coming just 15 metres short of a barrier.

03:02But aviation experts say that EMAS material may not be enough if aircraft are making emergency

03:08landings at high speeds.

03:17As renewed scrutiny falls upon airport designs and safety, these families in South Korea

03:23are now camped out at the airport, in shock and inconsolable as they wait to be reunited

03:30with their loved ones' remains.

03:32Kama Xu and Joyce Sun for Taiwan Plus.

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