Almost All Victims Died In Jeju Air Accident Identified

UNSPLASH/CLArk Gu ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - The bodies of 174 of 179 victims of the Jeju Air plane crash in Muan, South Korea, have been identified for the time being.

Through taklimat to the families of the victims at Muan International Airport, which is located 288 kilometers south of Seoul, officials from the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs, Infrastructure, and Transportation stated that they were still checking the identities of five other victims.

"Of the 32 people who failed to be identified through fingerprints, we managed to identify 17 of them through the first stage of DNA tests, and 10 more were identified through the second stage of DNA tests," said the ministry as quoted by ANTARA from Yonhap-OANA, Tuesday, December 31.

"We are still confirming the identities of the other five victims because there is inconsistency in their DNA," he added.

Four of the identified bodies have been handed over to their respective families, and the funeral procession has begun in the respective victims' hometowns.

Earlier, local officials said it would take up to 10 days to identify the bodies of all the victims who died and hand over the bodies to their families.

Local authorities also kept the victim's body in a temporary pending warehouse at the Muan airport hanger.

Meanwhile, a team of personnel from the United States National Transportation Safety Agency (NTSB) and aircraft manufacturer Boeing have been at the crash site to support the process of investigating the accident by the South Korean authorities.

There were only two people, both of whom were crew members, who survived the Jeju Air plane crash on Sunday (29/12). The plane landed without wheels and failed to stop, causing it to hit the airport guardrail.

The accident killed 179 of the total 181 passengers and crew on the ill-fated plane.