Hundreds of grieving relatives of people killed in the fated Jeju Air plane crash visited the site on New Year’s Day to pay respect to their loved ones.
South Korea’s transport ministry said authorities have finished formally identifying the 179 victims of the country’s worst air disaster.
Investigators have also extracted the data from the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and will convert it into an audio file, which is hoped will provide an insight into the crucial moments leading up to the tragedy.
The conversion could take about two days, the ministry said.
Officials said the contents of the damaged flight data recorder was not able to be extracted in South Korea, so it will be sent to the United States in cooperation with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for analysis.
Image: Mourners were transported near to the crash site via buses on New Year’s Day. Pic: AP
All 175 passengers and four of six crew members were killed on Sunday when the Boeing 737-800 belly-landed at Muan International Airport in the country’s southwest and slammed into a sand and concrete embankment at the end of the runway, where it burst into flames.
Two crew members, located near the tail of the plane, survived.
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Sky News reports from the crash site in South Korea
The government has declared a national mourning period until 4 January and the country scaled back New Year’s celebrations.
The transport ministry said two more US officials arrived late on Tuesday to join a team of around two dozen investigators including from the NTSB, Federal Aviation Administration, and aircraft maker Boeing.
“They’re also planning to start a visual investigation into the wreckage,” deputy minister for civil aviation Joo Jong-wan told a briefing.
Image: The plane in flames in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
Pic: South Korea’s Muan Fire Station/AP
Many questions remain unanswered and investigators will examine whether a bird strike, a failure of the landing gear to drop, or if problems with any other control systems played a role in the disaster.
Air safety experts have also questioned if the airport embankment designed to prop up navigation equipment was built too close to the end of the runway.
South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok has called for a fair and objective investigation, adding: “The most urgent matter at present is to return the victims to their families.”
Image: The Boeing 737-800 crashed at the weekend. Pic: AP
Airport authorities set up an altar late on Tuesday, and on Wednesday buses carried relatives of victims to the crash site so they could pay their respects to their lost loved ones.
Park Han-shin, who has been liaising with airport and government authorities on behalf of the bereaved families, said almost 700 family members visited the crash site, where they laid chrysanthemums and bowls of rice cake soup.
County officials have since sent an alert to urge visitors to go instead to a larger memorial set up in a sports complex about five miles from the crash site.
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Image: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Image: Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.