The Dec. 29 Jeju Air passenger plane disaster bereaved families council demanded an apology from the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, citing a research report commissioned by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport that said a concrete berm contributed to the fatal accident.
Issuing a statement on the 8th, the council said, "The Dec. 29, 2024 Jeju Air passenger plane disaster at Muan Airport was a clear man-made disaster," and stated accordingly.
The council said, "A simulation found that if there had been no concrete berm at the end of the runway, all passengers would have survived," adding, "This is not a simple assumption but a scientific conclusion based on a high-precision crash simulation using a supercomputer and an analysis of impact by seat."
It added, "Nevertheless, this report was not disclosed to the bereaved families for a year."
They said, "This disaster is not a simple accident that can be explained by a single berm," and "It is a complex aviation disaster entangled with bird strike, air traffic control, aircraft condition, maintenance, human factors, and the overall aviation safety management system of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport."
The bereaved families demanded an immediate apology from the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, completion of legal amendments to transfer the investigative body to an independent entity, and disclosure to the bereaved families of all investigative materials to date.
Meanwhile, according to Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party, the opposition secretary on the National Assembly's special committee for a parliamentary inquiry into the truth of the Dec. 29 passenger plane disaster, a simulation of the scenario without the localizer berm at Muan Airport produced an estimate that all passengers would have survived.