54 Unidentified Bodies... Bereaved Families Protest

Seeking Legal Action in the U.S. Over Aviation Disaster

[New York]

Park Soon-eop (67, Ansan, Gyeonggi Province), who lost her husband in the Korean Air (KAL) Guam crash nine months ago, held a press conference at attorney Kim Dong-min's office in Manhattan on April 3. This came after the possibility of filing a lawsuit in U.S. courts arose when the first accident hearing on March 25 suggested that the cause of the accident might have been a combination of pilot error and Guam’s air traffic control system failure.

At the press conference, Park voiced her dissatisfaction with Korean Air's accident response and criticized the lack of sincerity from the U.S. side. Park has not yet officially retained attorney Kim for the case.
Park expressed her frustration, saying, "I can't understand how, after six months of DNA testing, they still couldn't find my husband's body." She compared this to the U.S.'s proactive response to the TWA plane crash the previous year, where extensive searches in the Atlantic Ocean led to the identification of victims within a month. Park criticized the U.S. for being uncommitted in the Guam crash recovery efforts.
She argued, "This reflects Korean Air's absolute lack of disaster recovery capability, its lack of commitment, and the insufficient diplomatic effort by the Korean government."

Attorney Kim Dong-min stated, "If Korean Air and the Korean government had actively made the U.S. government aware of Korea's traditional customs regarding honoring the deceased, there wouldn't have been 54 unidentified bodies."

- Reporter Kim Jong-il

Photo Caption:
Park Soon-eop (right) and her second daughter Kim Young-ran hold a press conference.

April 6, 1998 (Monday), Chosun Ilbo, Korean Community · Metro Section 2

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