Armed with a warrant issued on the basis of the accusation of professional negligence, the South Korean police have recently carried out searches in the offices of the airline Jeju Air at the international airport of Muan, where last December 29 the worst air accident ever occurred in the country, when a B-737/800 aircraft of the national low-cost airline, after a belly landing, ended its tragic "belly" run against a perimeter wall of the airport, killing 179 of the 181 occupants. At the same time, other searches were also carried out at the carrier's Seoul headquarters, and at the regional aviation office in Busan. The searches led to the seizure of documents, now being examined by investigators.

The investigators, local press reports, are also working to ascertain the legitimacy of the location, so close to the runway, of the wall against which the plane hit in its uncontrolled flight: a concrete infrastructure that contained the antenna of the ILS locator (see AVIONEWS 1, 2, 3). The communications between the pilot and the tower are also being examined to verify the correct behavior of the air traffic controller, who in any case warned of the risk of a bird-strike due to the presence of a flock of birds about a minute before the Mayday.

Also today, the investigative commission announced that the conversion of the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) data into an audio file has been completed. Contrary to what was initially announced, however, due to the damage suffered in the accident, the FDR (Flight Data Recorder, or the device that records flight parameters) will be sent to the USA for decryption.