The South Korean government said on Monday that 146 of the 179 victims of the country's deadliest air crash had been identified.
A Jeju Air jetliner returning from Thailand skid off the runway when attempting to land at South Korea's Muan International Airport on Sunday, killing 179 out of the 181 aboard.
According to the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 146 victims had been identified by 17:00 on Monday, while the DNA matching for 33 others is still underway.
Although the search and rescue efforts have come to an end, firefighters and police officers were still seen combing through the crash site in search of the items left by the victims.
Acting President of South Korea Choi Sang-mok said on Monday that the top priority is to identify the victims, provide support for their families and treat the injured. He also urged investigators to ensure transparency throughout the process and keep the victims' families well informed.
Choi required the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to conduct an emergency safety inspection of the national airline operation system to prevent further aviation accidents from happening.
The ministry announced on Monday that it will conduct a comprehensive inspection of the 101 Boeing 737-800 airliners currently in operation in South Korea, which will be the first step in the emergency safety inspection.
The ministry said it had sent the two black boxes recovered from the crashed plane to the Gimpo Airport Testing and Analysis Center to determine whether data analysis could be conducted.
The ministry also said that it has launched a probe into the regulations concerning the construction of the concrete wall the jetliner crashed into and whether it is one of the causes of the accident.
Some experts believe that the accident's casualties could be reduced if the jetliner did not crash into the wall, as the plane was still under pilots' control when skidding down the runway, despite the emergencies it had during the landing.
The families of the victims on Monday requested the South Korean government to send more experts to the accident site to expedite the identification and recovery of the victims' remains, and provide more assistance to them.
They also demanded compensation from Jeju Air, which issued an apology to them on the day.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that it plans to send a team of experts to South Korea to participate in the investigation, while the jetliner's manufacturer, Boeing, also said it will participate in the investigation.
146 victims in South Korean plane crash identified
