The Jeju Air pilots' labor union on the 12th said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport must discipline those responsible along with an apology taking responsibility for the poor facility management and failure in aviation safety management revealed by the audit results that the Board of Audit and Inspection released on the management status of vulnerable areas in aviation safety.
The union said in a statement that this is a shocking reality showing how irresponsibly and sloppily Korea's aviation safety management system has been operated and a result that makes one doubt whether the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) has the will and ability to properly manage aviation safety.
The union said that since the Muan disaster, experts and aviation workers in the field have repeatedly pointed out the dangers of localizer structures, but the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) has never issued a responsible apology and has not taken any practical measures to solve the problem.
The union added that in particular, in the press References distributed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) on Dec. 31 last year, titled "Status of efforts to improve airport azimuth facilities," there is not a single line mentioning the three sites at Gimpo Airport and the localizer at Yeosu Airport.
It added that before the accident they might have claimed they did not know, but if they still failed to grasp it after the accident, it is incompetence, and if they knew but did not release it, it is an organized cover-up.
The union said the public does not know how many of the localizers at Korea's airports meet international standards and said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) must conduct a reinspection of the localizers and air navigation safety facilities at all domestic airports in accordance with international standards and transparently disclose the results to the public.
It also demanded that to prevent aviation safety from being distorted any longer by administrative convenience and organizational self-protection logic, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) launch fundamental institutional reforms of the entire airport safety management system.
Earlier, the Board of Audit and Inspection released a finding that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) presented inadequate countermeasures regarding the structural problem of the localizer (azimuth facility) that caused the Dec. 29 Muan International Airport Jeju Air passenger plane disaster, and said that because of this, improvement work on the localizers at Yeosu, Gimpo, and Jeju airports has not been completed.
It also said that at eight airports—Muan, Gimhae, Yeosu, Sacheon, Gwangju, Pohang, Jeju, and Gimpo—the localizers were wrongly installed from the time of establishment with structures such as concrete mounds that differ from regulations, yet in regular airport inspections the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) issued approvals stating that "vulnerability (frangible structure) has been secured."