hankyoreh

Families bereaved by the Sewol ferry disaster walk around the Sewol ferry on April 10, following a memorial ceremony for the eighth anniversary of the disaster. (Lee Jeong-yong/The Hankyoreh)

Jung Eun-ju

The pursuit of the truth of what happened the day the Sewol ferry tragically sank is at a crossroads once again.

The plenary committee of the Special Commission on Social Disaster Investigation, which is chaired by Moon Ho-seung and will be concluding its activities on Friday, and the Sewol Ferry Disaster Fact-finding Bureau, which investigated why the Sewol ferry sank, are locking horns over the finalization of the report detailing the findings of the investigation.

Currently, the report mentions the so-called “external force theory,” or the theory that a submarine collided with the ferry, “applying external force to the Sewol ferry during its navigation and causing its stabilizing fins [that maintains the ship’s left-right balance] to overspeed.”

Five out of the commission’s six plenary committee members including Moon Ho-seung, Moon Hyun-woong, Hwang Pill-kyu, Lee Min, and Lee Jae-won are of the position that the final report should explicitly state that the possibility the ferry sank due to external collision is little to none. On the other hand, plenary committee member Kang Gi-tak and the fact-finding bureau are maintaining that the final report should state that an external collision could be a possibility.

Four years ago, I witnessed a similar debate unfold. It was July 2018, and the Sewol Ferry Hull Investigation Committee had decided to release two different comprehensive reports. At the time, I was an outside writer for the comprehensive report, and most of the investigation result report had not even been voted on despite the fact that less than a month remained until the committee was supposed to complete its activities.

The six commissioners who attended the plenary meeting of the hull investigation committee split into factions of three, Kim Chang-jun, Kim Young-mo, and Kim Cheol-seung butting heads with Kwon Young-bin, Lee Dong-kwon, and Jang Beom-seon, the two groups fighting bitterly and hurling hurtful words like “incompetence” and “liar” at each other.

Even after the first draft of the comprehensive report was announced, the commissioners kept on quarreling, and in the end, the situation was settled according to Seoul National University naval architecture and ocean engineering professor Jang Beom-seon’s suggestion that two separate reports be written.

As a result, one comprehensive report pointed to the “internal cause theory,” which explained that the Sewol ferry sank due to its poor stability and mechanical failures, while the other comprehensive report left the cause open-ended, suggesting that additional investigations should be conducted to determine whether the ferry could have sunk due to external force such as a collision.

I was disappointed that the two comprehensive reports weren’t published as one despite the fact that they had more similarities than dissimilarities. Still, I was relieved that a national investigation agency had released a comprehensive report concerning the Sewol ferry disaster for the first time.

However, the awkward resolution provided an excuse for the fact-finding bureau of the special commission to conduct a focused investigation based on the external force theory since it kicked off in December 2017. Maintaining that it would resolve controversies the hull investigation committee failed to resolve, the bureau carried out activities that aimed to prove the possibility of an external collision while disproving the internal cause theory for the past three years.

Subsequently, the bureau released two investigation result reports: one in April, in which it stated that “it’s difficult to consider the failure of the solenoid valve [oil pressure regulator] to be related to [the Sewol ferry’s sinking],” and the other in May, in which it stated that “external collision is a possibility.”

But experts are pessimistic about these findings. The Society of Naval Architects of Korea, which examined the special commission’s investigation result report on why the Sewol ferry sank, says that it’s impossible for the ferry to have sunk due to external force, especially from a collision with a submarine. The society pointed to the weakness of the hypothesis, the unscientific nature of the methodology used in the investigation, and illogical reasoning as to why it thought so.

Especially of note, even Jang Beom-seon, who signed the hull investigation committee’s “open-ended” comprehensive report, argued as part of the society’s advisory group that “collision with a submarine is scientifically impossible.”

MARIN, a maritime research institute in the Netherlands that conducted a simulation experiment with a model of the Sewol ferry for the hull investigation committee as well as the special commission, identified poor stability and cargo movement as reasons the Sewol ferry sank, dismissing the submarine collision theory.

Even if the solenoid valve wasn’t broken, the conclusion still holds that the Sewol ferry sank due to its poor stability.

On May 26, the special commission held a plenary committee meeting and requested that references to “external force” in the investigation result report be deleted or revised. But the fact-finding bureau, which is under the direction and supervision of the plenary committee, is refusing to accept this request, its investigators standing their ground against repeated revision requests from the committee’s majority despite the fact that the investigation outcome has to pass through a vote by the plenary committee in order to make it into the final report.

No investigation of a disaster can determine with 100% confidence the reason the disaster took place. Even if some issues remain a mystery, investigators should come up with the best answer they can while acknowledging their limitations.

Questions should be settled if they turn out to be baseless. That is the responsible attitude proper for a national investigation agency, and that’s how societies learn lessons and legal and institutional changes arise in the process.

This is why calls for more investigations should not be repeated again and again in regard to the Sewol ferry disaster now that we’ve had eight years of investigations into the truth of what happened by the Special Inquest on the 4/16 Sewol Ferry Disaster, the Sewol Ferry Hull Investigation Committee, and the Special Commission on Social Disaster Investigation.

The special commission will hold a plenary committee meeting in order to reach a conclusion as to what caused the Sewol ferry to sink. I hope the occasion will serve as an opportunity for a historic decision that will take us a step forward.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]