Accident Response Time

[Anchor Lead]

The accident was first reported by a passenger of the fishing boat. The Korea Coast Guard rushed to the scene 33 minutes after receiving the call, but underwater search and rescue specialists arrived an hour later. While it appears the rescue team did its best to respond, the search and rescue system has room for improvement.

[Pkg]

It was around 6 in the morning when the Seonchang-1 left the port. Not long after the departure, the fishing boat collided with the oil tanker Myeongjin in the dark.

[Soundbite] (Survivor) : "I saw the front of the vessel, as if something appeared out of nowhere in the dark."

The oil carrier was urgently communicating with other vessels. It was intercepted by Incheon Vessel Traffic Services. That was 6:05AM.

[Soundbite] Hwang Jun-hyeon(Incheon Coast Guard) : "The communication was about how two people fell overboard after colliding with another vessel, but that they were rescued."

However, it was four minutes later at 6:09 AM, when an official report of the accident was called in. The report came from a passsenger who was on board the fishing boat. Four minutes later, the Coast Guard dispatched personnel to the scene from Yeongheung police station, located 1.6 kilometers away from the accident site. It was 6:26 AM when a Coast Guard rescue boat departed from the Yeongheung police station. The first rescue boat reached the scene of the accident 16 minutes later. Thirty-three minutes had passed since the accident report was first received. It took 13 minutes from issuing a dispatch order to departure, and another 16 minutes to reach the site 1.6 kilometers away. The first responders handled the situation amid great pressure, but whether their actions were quick enough are in question. Moreover, underwater rescue specialists, who are capable of saving passengers trapped inside the hull, showed up at the scene between 7:17 AM and 7:36 AM, which was over an hour after the accident had occurred. It was around this time when a helicopter flew to the accident site. The Coast Guard explained that the underwater rescue team had left from Incheon and Pyeongtaek. Nonetheless, given that the collision had occurred in an accident-prone area, there are calls to review the entire accident response system.