Prosecutors Tuesday indicted the pilot and co-pilot whose jetliner skidded off a runway and into a barrier after they quarreled during a landing.
Pilot Barry Edward Woods, 52, of Vancouver, British Columbia, and co-pilot Chung Chankyu, 36, of South Korea, were charged with negligence of duty and violating South Korea's aviation law, prosecutors said.If convicted, they could be jailed up to three years. They were not arrested but were banned from leaving the country pending trial.
All 152 passengers and eight crew members escaped moments before the Korean Air plane exploded in flames after landing at the airport on Cheju island Aug. 10.
Prosecutors said the plane, an Airbus 300, was going too fast and landed too far down the runway for a safe landing.
Woods and Chung blamed each other for the crash.
Woods told investigators that Chung tried to abort the landing while Woods was engaging the brakes to land, thus making the plane skid. Chung said he was trying to reduce the plane's speed.
Transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder show the two men argued during the landing.
In an interim report released Saturday, South Korea's Transportation Ministry said Woods shouldn't have attempted the landing and Chung shouldn't have tried to wrest control of the plane. Its final report is expected in late September.