Recently, in a village in South Korea, a lonely and bewildered pet dog named Pudding was seen waiting in front of a tightly locked gate for its owner to return, becoming a topic of discussion in South Korea.
However, the owner will never return.
The owner that Pudding, the pet dog, was waiting for was a family of nine living in Longyan Village, Lingguang County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea. They all tragically perished in an aviation disaster that occurred at the Wuan International Airport on December 29, 2024.
This family of nine, which included the oldest passenger on the flight, 80-year-old Mr. Pei, along with his wife, two daughters, grandchildren, relatives spanning three generations, were all on a trip to celebrate Mr. Pei’s 80th birthday when the unfortunate incident happened.
On the morning of the 29th, Jin Air Flight 7C2216 departing from Bangkok, Thailand, crashed off the runway during landing at Wuan International Airport in South Jeolla Province, colliding with the airport’s concrete “wall” and bursting into flames, resulting in the loss of 179 lives. This became the deadliest plane crash in South Korean history.
The ill-fated flight was a chartered flight arranged by local small travel agencies in South Korea to welcome Christmas, offering a 5-day, 3-night travel package to Bangkok, Thailand. The majority of the victims were families, relatives, and colleagues, making the tragedy even more heartbreaking.
Following the accident, authorities in South Korea have initiated a joint investigation with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing to determine the cause of the crash. While it may take time to conclude the investigation into the air disaster, issues surrounding the Wuan Airport, such as its construction necessity, the concrete “wall,” short runways, and bird collisions, have become the focus of public attention in South Korea.
Since its inception, the construction of Wuan Airport has always been a subject of controversy.
The airport was a promise made by presidential candidate Kim Dae-Jung in 1997, which commenced during his presidency in 1999 and was inaugurated during President No Mu-hyeon’s term in 2007. Despite investigations by the Korean Audit Office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (now the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s predecessor) yielding conclusions of no economic benefits, the airport was eventually completed.
Before its opening, the airport projected an annual passenger count of 9.92 million, but last year saw only 246,000 passengers. With such low passenger traffic, scenes of locals drying chili peppers on the runway were not uncommon, earning the airport the nickname “Chili Pepper Airport.” The airport’s runway utilization rate remained at the bottom in South Korea, accruing annual deficits of 10 to 20 billion Korean won and accumulating net losses exceeding 100 billion Korean won.
After the air disaster, attention turned to the promises made regarding Wuan Airport by Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Party.
In 2022, as a presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung vowed to transform Wuan Airport into a hub for Korean Air. His election promises included increasing international routes from Wuan Airport, expanding runways, passenger terminals, duty-free shops, and foreigner-only casinos.
At the time of the air tragedy, Wuan Airport was undergoing runway extension works to a length of 3.126 kilometers, with an investment of 274.13 billion Korean won (approximately 1.87 billion US dollars) until 2025, expected to be completed by that year. Due to this construction, about 300 meters of the runway at Wuan Airport were unusable, leading to skeptics attributing the short runway length as one of the causes of the accident. Originally, Wuan Airport’s runway was only about 2.8 kilometers, shorter than most major international airports that handle regular landings and takeoffs of large aircraft, whose runways exceed 3 kilometers.
Wuan Airport was also criticized for having multiple safety vulnerabilities.
The primary reason for the loss of life was identified as the passenger plane striking the concrete “wall” upon landing. This “wall” refers to the Instrument Landing System (ILS) base made of concrete at the end of the runway.
Regarding this base, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stated that Wuan Airport was initially designed with a concrete structure in early 2007 and had been reinforced during improvement projects.
However, this conflicted with the design guideline of using fragile materials for ILS laid out by the Korea Airports Corporation.
David Learmount, an aviation safety expert and former Royal Air Force (RAF) C-130 transport pilot, commented in an interview with Sky News that passengers died after hitting a sturdy construction (concrete “wall”) slightly beyond the end of the runway upon landing, emphasizing that such solid structures should not be there.
Furthermore, Wuan Airport’s proximity to the West Coast bird sanctuary raised concerns. Statistics provided by the Korea Airports Corporation showed that Wuan Airport had the highest rate of bird strikes among local airports in the country over the past five years.
The issue of bird strikes at Wuan Airport had been raised since the initial construction phase, and during the strategic environmental impact assessment, the risk of bird strikes with aircraft took into account the existence of organic bodies. A report from 2020 indicated a significant risk of bird strikes during aircraft takeoffs and landings, urging the government to implement mitigation measures.
The report recommended the installation of sound barriers or alarm systems, the use of lasers, flags, LED lighting, among other concrete measures to minimize bird collisions, yet the implementation of these measures had not been effectively carried out.