Tag: accident

Bodies from the recent boat sinking in Hungary continue to be found:

 The five bodies found in the Danube River in the last two days were all confirmed to be South Koreans missing in last week’s deadly sinking of a sightseeing boat in Hungary, officials said Wednesday. 
That puts the death toll of last Wednesday’s tragedy in central Budapest at 12 Koreans, with 14 others still unaccounted for. Two Hungarian crew members also remain missing. Seven other Korean passengers were rescued right after the accident.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Background

In March of 1951 United States Forces Korea (USFK) was executing their annual Team Spirit exercise.  Team Spirit was the major joint exercise held annually with the Republic of Korea (ROK) military from 1976 to 1993.  Team Spirit ended in 1993 as part of the efforts to end the nuclear crisis with North Korea that began that year.  Team Spirit exercised the logistics of supporting US warfighting units on the peninsula and joint operations between the US and ROK militaries.

In 1981 USFK held its largest ever Team Spirit exercise up to that point that featured 27,000 US military personnel stationed in Korea and 33,000 US military personnel from outside the peninsula.  In addition to the US military personnel, over 100,000 ROK military servicemembers participated in the exercise as well.  The April 8, 1981 Stars and Stripes called that year’s Team Spirit “the largest ground field maneuver exercise in the Free World”.  This was the first Team Spirit exercise held during the Ronald Reagan administration where US and ROK ties had noticeable improved after much deterioration during the prior Carter administration.

The 1981 Team Spirit exercise featured a scenario where North Korea attacked southwest across the Han River which caused US and ROK forces to fight a delaying action southeast of the river.  After completing the delaying action, US and ROK forces would then launch a counterattack to push the North Koreans north of the Han River again.

The Deadly Accident

On March 15, 1981 soldiers from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 31st Mechanized Infantry (C/1-31IN) from the 2nd Infantry Division stationed in South Korea found themselves participating in the counterattack portion of the exercise.  Their unit was participating in a river crossing exercise where their armored personnel carriers would cross a pontoon bridge constructed on the Namhan River outside of the city of Yeoju, 35 miles southeast of Seoul.

City of Yeoju located on the far bottom right and Seoul on the upper left.  The Namhan River can be seen flowing north from Yeouju and connecting with the Han River that flows through Seoul.

Due to the many large rivers in South Korea, river crossing exercises are an extremely important skill to master.  To this day river crossing exercises are conducted on major rivers in South Korea to include the Namhan River:

However, for the soldiers of C/1-31IN, the river crossing exercise executed during the 1981 Team Spirit exercise quickly turned deadly.  12 soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives when two armored personnel carriers fell into the frigid water when the pontoon bridge broke apart.  Eight of the soldiers were rescued, but the accident ultimately cost the lives of four USFK soldiers.  Sergeant Harry Pickins, age 26 of West Memphis, Arkansas was the first body recovered on the same day of the accident.  He was assigned to the 17th Field Artillery battalion:

Stars & Stripes newspaper, March 21, 1981

The Stars & Stripes newspaper reported five days later that the body of 18-year old, Private First Class Philip Pidgeon from Carbondale, Pennsylvania had been recovered about one mile downstream from the accident site:

Stars & Stripes newspaper, March 26, 1981

Two weeks later the Stars & Stripes then reported that the body of 21-year old Sergeant Vernon Cude was recovered from the river:

Stars & Stripes newspaper, April 12, 1981

Sergeant Cude reportedly helped others to find their life vests before the cold water and fast current washed him away.  The only other body that had not been recovered was of 22-year old Sergeant Gary Schlecht.  Much like Sergeant Cude, he attempted to help save soldiers without life vests before the swift current washed him away.  I could not find any additional articles in the Stars & Stripes archive reporting on whether Sergeant Schlecht’s body was eventually recovered.  However, the Find A Grave website does have a memorial marker for Sergeant Schlecht in Dayton, Ohio.

Stars & Stripes newspaper, April 8, 1981

River Crossing Accidents in Korea

Unfortunately this accident would not be the last deadly river crossing accident in South Korea.  The May 10th, 1985 Stars & Stripes newspaper reported that a US soldier lost his life when an armored personnel carrier fell off a pontoon bridge on the Imjim River.  In 1998 four US soldiers and a Korean Augmentee to the US Army (KATUSA) lost their lives when once again an armored personnel carrier fell off a pontoon bridge on the Imjim River.  It was this accident I remember being briefed to my unit when we conducted my first river crossing exercise on the Imjim River back in 2000.  Safety was of the up most concern during every river crossing exercise I have ever done in Korea since then and fortunately there has been no other deadly accidents since 1998.

Remembering the tragic deaths during the 1981 Team Spirit exercise serves as a reminder of the importance of safety during potentially dangerous training and making sure all efforts are made to mitigate risk.  I don’t know if everything was done to mitigate risk before this tragic accident in 1981, but leaders today owe it to the memories of those killed in tragic accidents like this to take all measures to prevent future accidents.

Not being in the Navy I don’t know how common fender benders like this are, but it is pretty clear that any Navy ship that receives a scratch will lead to national headlines due to the two recent deadly ship accidents:

A U.S. warship collided with a Japanese commercial tug boat in Japan’s Sagami Bay on Saturday, marking the fifth time this year that a ship in the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet in the Pacific has been involved in a crash.

The Japanese tug boat lost propulsion and drifted into the USS Benfold during a towing exercise. The U.S. guided-missile destroyer sustained minimal damage, and there were no reported injuries on either vessel, according to a press release from the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.

The USS Benfold, which is awaiting a full damage assessment, remains at sea under its own power. The incident will be investigated, the 7th Fleet said.  [Good Morning America]

You can read more at the link as well as over at the Stars & Stripes.

This is a horrible accident the USS Fitzgerald has been involved in that has caused 7 sailors to go missing and more injured:

The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald suffered damage to its starboard side above and below the waterline in the incident.

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, commander of the Fitzgerald, was one of three injured sailors who needed to be flown to a naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.

The two ships collided about 2:30 a.m. local time in the Pacific Ocean about 56 nautical miles from the port of Yokosuka and 12 miles off the Izu Peninsula, the Japanese coast guard said.

The Fitzgerald had left the US naval base in Yokosuka earlier Friday for routine operations in the area, a US Naval Forces Japan spokesman said. The damage to the Fitzgerald resulted in some flooding.  [CNN]

Shown is a tower crane that collided with another crane at a Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, on May 1, 2017, to kill six people and injure 19 others. (Yonhap)

This is a really horrible tragedy which appears to have been caused by negligence by the driver:

A fire on a tour bus killed 10 people Thursday night on a highway in Ulsan. Seven others on the bus, which was carrying 22 people including a tour guide and the driver, were injured.

About 10:10 p.m., the bus scraped against a crash barrier several times while changing lanes. It then caught fire.

The passengers could not get out because the crash barrier was blocking the door. Some of them managed to break the window and escape, but 10 people could not escape from the smoke and fire, survivors and witnesses said.

Firefighters extinguished the fire at 11:01 p.m. Only the frame of the bus was left.
The tour guide told police that they couldn’t find the emergency hammer, so the driver used a fire extinguisher to break the windows.

The driver, surnamed Lee, 49, claimed that one of the tires went flat and made the bus lose balance. He added he did not doze off. But police suspect he was speeding, based on traffic camera footage and testimony from some of the passengers that the bus was travelling at high speed before suddenly changing lanes.

Police will request an arrest warrant for the driver for accidental homicide, saying Lee did not drive safely enough. “The driver claims the accident was caused by a flat tire, so we will send the bus to the National Forensic Service for inspection,” Choi Ik-soo, chief of the Ulju Police Station, told journalists at a briefing. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Condolences to the family of this sailor that died in an incredibly strange accident down in Changwon:

A U.S. sailor died after plunging more than 120 feet down an elevator shaft at a South Korean hotel, officials said Monday.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason James “Jimmy” McLaughlin, 28, apparently was trying to climb out of the elevator after it got stuck between floors at the Hotel International in the city of Changwon over the weekend, police and fire officials said.

He was in cardiac arrest when rescue crews arrived and died after being taken to a hospital, they said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

How do you forget to do something as basic as hooking up a harness to somebody going on a zip line?  This is like telling someone to jump out of a plane without giving them a parachute:

A 12-year-old boy died in a 24-meter (78-foot) fall from the starting point of a zip line, an adventure sport in which people slide down a cable using a pulley, in Boeun County, North Chungcheong, on Saturday, raising concerns about Korea’s lack of safety standards for leisure activities.

The police think a worker at the zip line didn’t properly attach the victim’s harness to the pulley. The worker was a 23-year-old university student on a leave of absence. The boy, who lived in Cheongju, an adjacent city, was on a group outing.

“We believe the employee did not do his job, which is to attach the pulley to the rider’s harness before the jump,” said a police officer. “The employee stated in the investigation that he thought he connected the wire to the boy before he departed.”

The operator of the park immediately suspended operations and took the boy to a nearby hospital, but the victim died of excessive bleeding later that day. The police are planning to charge the employee for involuntary manslaughter due to professional negligence, while they investigate other kinds of negligence in the operation and maintenance of the park.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but condolences to the family of the boy.

I understand how these families members are upset, but the sinking of the fishing boat off the coast of Russia that resulted in 53 people dead or missing is not going to get much attention in Korea because the vast majority of the people who died were foreigners.  Plus it happened so far out at sea where there was no news cameras compared to the Sewol ferry boat tragedy:

On a cold afternoon last month, a handful of demonstrators carried signs along a road in downtown Seoul, attracting little attention.

The lack of interest was troubling for the small group, whose loved ones disappeared on Dec. 1 when the Korean-owned trawler Oryong 501 sank in the Bering Sea off the coast of Russia.

Six Koreans were confirmed dead in the sinking of the 1,753-ton vessel; five others remain unaccounted for. In all, 27 men, including Filipinos and Indonesians, have been confirmed dead and 26 are listed as missing.

Some of the Korean family members want the owner of the ship, Sajo Group, held accountable, saying the company sent out a non-seaworthy boat and is evading its responsibilities. They also want the government to apologize for what they believe was lax monitoring of the firm.

“We demand that Sajo Group be punished for letting a malfunctioning fishing boat go out to sea; for an apology from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries; and a pledge that the ministry will properly supervise future ocean operations,” said Ko Jang-un, a representative for the families, whose brother has been confirmed dead.

Ma Sun-sook, who also lost her brother, said, “You can’t call it an accident if the sinking of the vessel was predictable.”  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the boat took on water during a bad storm and a bad water pump resulted in the boat not being able to extract the water and it sunk.  It had been known for months that the boat had a bad pump.  It seems to me the company is to blame more so than government regulators.

Bereaved families of the Sewol ferry victims march on the streets of Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, on Feb. 4, 2015. They are in the midst of a nationwide march in demand of the safe salvage of the sunken ferry in the sea off Jindo Island, South Jeolla Province. (Yonhap)