Pohang: The government on Friday awarded posthumous national security merit decorations to four Navy officers who tragically lost their lives in a maritime patrol aircraft crash during a training exercise last year, according to the Navy.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Navy organized a commemorative event marking the one-year anniversary of the unfortunate incident. The ceremony took place in the southeastern city of Pohang, where the decorations were presented to the bereaved family members of the officers. The four officers, comprising two commissioned and two non-commissioned officers, were onboard a P-3CK patrol plane that crashed on a mountain in Pohang, approximately 270 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in May of the previous year. The crash occurred just six minutes after the aircraft took off for routine training from a nearby air base. Thankfully, no civilian casualties were reported, but all four crew members aboard the plane were killed.

The Navy conducted an extensive, months-long investigation into the crash but could not pinpoint a specific cause. Contributing to the difficulty of the investigation was the absence of a flight data recorder on the aircraft, and the cockpit voice recorder was too damaged to recover any data. Despite this, the Navy identified insufficient training for responding to stalls and other emergency situations as a significant factor in the accident.

The P-3C patrol plane fleet operated by the Navy has since resumed its flight operations following a brief suspension. However, the P-3CK variant involved in the crash remains grounded, according to the armed service.