Overview

• Authorities called off a mid-July press briefing and withheld a partial investigation report after families and the pilots’ union denounced conclusions that blamed pilot error for shutting off the less-damaged engine following a bird strike.
• The preliminary findings attributed the disaster to the accidental shutdown of the left engine rather than the bird-struck right engine based on cockpit voice and flight data recorder analysis and a physical engine switch examination.
• Victims’ families have accused investigators of lacking transparency and have demanded access to full black box recordings to verify the pilot-error hypothesis.
• Jeju Air pilots’ union joined families in rejecting the narrow focus on human error and urged investigators to examine runway barrier design and emergency training procedures.
• A South Korea-led multilateral probe will continue to assess multiple factors and deliver a comprehensive final report by June 2026.