Transport Ministry admits navigation structure involved in fatal Jeju Air crash did not meet safety standards

For the first time, the Transport Ministry acknowledged that a navigation structure involved in the fatal plane crash at Muan International Airport did not meet regulatory safety standards, reversing its stance more than a year after the accident.

Officials from a joint investigation team retrieve an engine buried at the Jeju Air crash site at Muan International Airport in South Jeolla on Jan. 2, 2025. [YONHAP]

For the first time, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport acknowledged that a key navigation structure involved in the fatal plane crash at Muan International Airport in South Jeolla on Dec. 29, 2024, did not meet regulatory safety standards, reversing its previous stance more than a year after the incident.

The ministry’s admission centers on a concrete structure supporting the airport’s localizer, a navigation aide that guides aircraft approaching the runway. It had long been suspected as a major factor in the crash — during which the airplane collided with the localizer — that killed nearly 200 passengers aboard a Jeju Air flight.

According to Rep. Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party, a member of the parliamentary committee investigating the crash, the ministry recently told the National Assembly that “the localizer at Muan Airport failed to comply with airport safety operation standards,” and that during a 2020 upgrade project, it should have been modified “to break easily in the event of a collision if installed within 240 meters [787 feet] of the end of the runway.”

Immediately after the accident, the ministry insisted the installation was legal, citing that the hill stood 199 meters from the runway's end, beyond the 150-meter minimum required by regulations.

But that safety buffer became the central point of contention in the investigation. According to the ministry's airport safety operation standards — first established in 2003 by its predecessor, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation — any navigation-related structure installed within 240 meters of the runway end must be “frangible,” or designed to break upon impact, and “as low in height as possible.”

These rules, however, only took effect in 2010, leading the ministry to argue that Muan Airport’s structure was not violating any rules since the airport opened in 2007, three years before the regulation was enforced.

Even accepting that rationale, the decision not to modify the concrete hill during the 2020 upgrade project emerged as another critical issue. Although the Transport Ministry and Korea Airports Corporation included a clause in the design tender that required a “review of frangibility measures,” the localizer at Muan Airport was never altered to meet those breakaway standards.

White chrysanthemums are placed at the crash site at Muan International Airport in South Jeolla on Dec. 29, 2025, to mark the first anniversary of the Jeju Air disaster. [YONHAP]

Rep. Kim said meeting records from the 2020 upgrade show that no objections were raised when Muan Airport opted to keep the localizer on the concrete structure.

“Despite the decision to maintain the installation in its original position, no one insisted it be replaced with a frangible structure,” she said, calling it a failure of regulatory oversight.

Kim added that the ministry’s revised position “amounts to an acknowledgment of its responsibility for not improving the structure during the 2020 upgrade, despite clear safety considerations,” and urged a thorough investigation into the government’s prior inaction.

She also revealed that a simulation commissioned by the ministry’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board found that all passengers would likely have survived had the localizer not been present. The simulation, conducted by the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea, was based on data provided last March.

Another simulation, which assumed the structure had been upgraded to a frangible type, projected that there would have been no serious injuries, lending support to victims' families who claim the concrete hill directly contributed to the severity of the crash.

“The hill that should have been breakable became a deadly barrier,” Kim said. “We must uncover the full truth behind how this happened.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY KIM JUN-YOUNG [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]