[NOTE: I finished writing the first draft of this post on April 30, 2014. Since then, additional facts have been uncovered. I will periodically update this post as I learn new, relevant facts.]
President Park Geun-hye's administration is entering its second full year. The previous administration was led by President Lee Myeong-bak, who was also a conservative like his successor. In the area of economic policies, President Lee was the most neoliberal president that Korea has ever had. Like America's Republican presidents after which he modeled himself, President Lee pushed for lower taxes, privitization and deregulation. The Park administration was content to keep the animo going.
The advanced age of the ship caused constant problems. Company records show that the Sewol had engine RPM issues two months prior to the accident. A report from the beginning of April shows that the Sewol's helm would lose power.
Cheonghaejin, a small, financially struggling company, also cut corners on safety. Because it never had enough money to invest in a new ship, it had consistently set itself up for the safety hazards that come with older ships. (In 2001, for example, had worked for the company for more than a decade, but was recently converted into an irregular worker, presumably because of his age.) One of the First Mates joined the company the day before he boarded the Sewol. Among the top three decision-makers of the ship--i.e. the Captain and the two First Mates--only one of the First Mates was a regular worker.
The crew members were also paid poorly. Employees for domestic ferries receive less than two-thirds of the same for the ships that travel internationally. In addition, irregular workers generally get paid less than regular workers. This means that the Sewol's crew tended to be either too old or too inexperienced. The Captain was 67 years old; the Third Mate, who was steering the ship when the ship began listing, was 25 years old. Both the Third Mate and the Helmsman who were at the helm when the ship began listing had never worked on a passenger ferry until they joined the crew of the Sewol, less than six months prior.
Particularly problematic was the Captain Lee Jun-seok. Lee, in addition to being an irregular worker, was a substitute who was called in when the original captain--who is a regular worker--was taking his labor law-mandated monthly leave. Further, contrary to the normal practice of having two alternating captains for each ship, Lee served as the substitute captain for both the Sewol and the Omahana, the two ferry boats from Incheon to Jeju.
THE SEWOL SETS SAIL
Map of South Korea. Incheon is to the west of Seoul. Jeju is the large island in the south. The Sewol was passing the southwestern tip of Korean Peninsula. (source)
The Company
Korean Register of Shipping, a non-profit organization, certified the safety of the Sewol after modification with several conditions. Because the ship became significantly heavier, KRS ordered the Sewol to reduce the maximum cargo load from 2,437 tons to 987 tons. Further, the Sewol had to increase the amount of ballast water it carried in the stabilizing tanks from 1,023 tons to 2,030 tons.
However, Cheonghaejin habitually overloaded the Sewol with cargo, as the cargo business from Incheon to Jeju was the true moneymaker for the company. The Sewol's regular captain, as well as the substitute Captain Lee, routinely complained that the company was overloading the ship. On the day the Sewol embarked its fateful journey, the ship's First Mate told the company that unless it stopped loading, the ship would sink. The Sewol's bill of lading shows that the ship carried jaw-dropping 3,608 tons, 3.7 times the allowed cargo weight. In order to balance the ship, the company almost certain drained a huge amount of ballast water. The net effect was to make the ship extremely unstable due to excess weight, with not enough ballast water to balance the ship.
In fact, the Sewol was not even supposed to leave Incheon. The night before the accident, the port of Incheon was surrounded in thick fog. The Sewol, which was supposed to leave at 6:30 p.m., left the port at 9 p.m. However, at 9 p.m., the visibility was too low for the Sewol to be allowed to leave. On the night of April 15, 2014, the Sewol was the only ship that was allowed to set sail out of Incheon.
The Company
Cheonghaejin's preferred course from Incheon to Jeju included a passage through the Maenggol Road [맹골수도], near the southwestern tip of Korean Peninsula. Maenggol Road is named after the nearby Maenggol-do island, which means "the island of fierce bones" in reference to the numerous sharp rocks around the island.
The waters of the peninsula's southwest is treacherous. The body of water there is alternately known as Dadohae [다도해], "the Sea of Many Islands." The largest among them is the Jindo island, home of the famously smart and loyal Jindo dogs. The numerous small islands form a huge number of channels, which funnel the water into a surprisingly fast and choppy ride. More than 400 years ago, the legendary Admiral Yi Sun-sin [이순신] used the unpredictable current around the southwestern sea to achieve one of the greatest naval victories in recorded history, which is now known as the Battle of Myeongryang [명량해전]. With only 13 warships at his disposal, Yi lured the oncoming Japanese fleet of 133 ships into the narrows between Jindo and the mainland, called Uldolmok [울돌목]. At the Uldolmok narrows, the Japanese fleet was caught in the current that suddenly reversed direction, exactly as Admiral Yi designed. The Japanese fleet, unable to maneuver against the current, became sitting ducks for Korean fleet's focused cannon fire. The Japanese fleet withdrew after losing more than 30 ships.
The Sewol's course in the Maenggol Road. The island on the northeastern corner of the small map is the Jindo island. (source)
It is unclear why the Sewol made that fateful turn. The Third Mate and the Helmsmen gave conflicting statements to the police. The Third Mate and the Helmsman may have made a mistake, or the ship's rudder may have malfunctioned. We do know, however, that the Sewol turned sharply. The ship, modified to have a higher center of gravity and weight imbalance on each side, carrying more than three times the recommended weight in cargo which was not properly secured, with much of the stabilizing water drained out of its ballast tanks, started to list beyond the crew's control.
The Sewol turned sharply, lost its balance, and began sinking at 8:48 a.m., on the morning of April 16, 2014. The nearest Coast Guard station, in Mokpo, was nearly 30 miles away.
THE SEWOL SINKS FOR 40 MINUTES
The Crew, the Company and the Government
As discussed further below, all relevant parties--the crew, Cheonghaejin, the Coast Guard, the Vessel Traffic Service--were aware that the ship was sinking by 9:07 a.m., less than 20 minutes after the accident. For the Sewol's passengers to escape from the ship, they had to be outside by around 9:50 a.m. Had any one of the actors made the correct judgment to evacuate ship during those 40 minutes or so, virtually all passenger could have been saved. Instead, all parties engaged in varying degrees of incompetence, indecision and confusion, which cost more than three hundred lives.
At 9:01 a.m., one of the ingusan crew members of the Sewol--a cabin manager for the passengers--called the Cheonghaejin Marine Co., presumably to report the accident. Afterward, the company telephoned the Captain once, and the First Mate five times. The last phone call between the Crew and the company was at 9:37 a.m. By then, the rescue team had arrived.
The contents of those telephone calls are under heavy scrutiny by the police; as of now, they are not yet known. However, the fact that Cheonghaejin called the First Mate (who was, recall, a regular worker) far more frequently than the Captain (an irregular worker) suggests that the actual decision-making authority did not correspond with the formal order. It appears that the Captain was the leader in name only; the First Mate was calling the shots. The First Mate was the one that communicated with the Jindo VTS, and he was the first to escape the Sewol when the rescue team arrived. According to the video of the rescue, the Captain did not exit the ship until the First Mate waved him out of the bridge.
The Crew
In the 40 minutes between 8:55 a.m. (the distress call) and 9:37 a.m. (last call between the First Mate and the company,) the Crew does nothing to save the passengers. Nothing. Fucking nothing. The Crew did not even answer the call from the ingusan crew members from below the deck, who could only tell the passengers haplessly to remain in their cabins.
When the Jindo VTS told the Crew to make the announcement to the passengers to put on life jackets, the Crew lied and said the PA system was out. they were perplexed that there were not a ton of people in the water already. But the urgency of the situation made the Coast Guard focus first on taking the people who were ready to get out. (And of course, the people who were most ready to board the Coast Guard rescue boat was the Crew.)
For the passengers--mostly young students--who were not lucky enough to run into the ingusan crew frantically running to save as many people as they could, the last official instruction they heard was to stay in their cabins. The Coast Guard's helicopter this update post for additional information. Although it would have been very dangerous for the Coast Guard to approach the main cabin door, it was not impossible.
Ultimately, it came down to the fact that the rescue team simply did not have enough time. The Coast Guard began the rescue at 9:35 a.m. Slightly more than 20 minutes later at 9:56 a.m., the Sewol had listed 90 degrees on the left side, trapping everyone on the left. At 10:06 a.m., the Coast Guard saw passengers screaming inside a ship's cabin. The Coast Guard broke the window, and rescued seven passengers from inside the cabin. Those seven were the only ones rescued from inside the ship. The Coast Guard had no divers, and not enough people to keep breaking glass.
The last text message from inside the ship, sent by a Danwon High School student, was transmitted at 10:17 a.m. At 10:31 a.m. the Sewol capsized completely, taking everyone inside with it.
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Part III will discuss how various political and social actors of Korea, including the disaster managers, the President, politicians, the media, and ordinary citizens reacted after the sinking of the Sewol.
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