Days before setting off on a vacation from which he would never return, Oh Jaejin’s father had been overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a grandfather after Oh told him that his wife was pregnant.

“He said he was about to cry,” said Oh, 37, tears welling as he recalled his father’s response to the news earlier this month. On Sunday, Oh’s father was killed along with 178 other people when the plane they were on, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, left Bangkok and crash-landed at an airport in southwestern South Korea.

The accident, the world’s deadliest plane crash in recent years, turned the airport in Muan County into a place of colossal grief and shock for the hundreds of victims’ relatives who had rushed there. On Tuesday, that sadness swelled as officials slowly led families to a temporary morgue set up at the airport hangar, outside the terminal, to identify bodies that had been recovered from the charred and mangled wreckage.

The work of piecing together hundreds of body parts has been painstaking, but the authorities said that by Tuesday morning 170 bodies had been identified, and four were turned over to their families. The crash was so devastating that only two people onboard survived — crew members who have since been hospitalised in Seoul. At the Muan airport, a memorial altar was being set up on the first floor on Tuesday for relatives and visitors to lay flowers.

Oh’s father, who was 64, had been on vacation in Bangkok with seven childhood friends from Mokpo, a nearby city.

Oh had last seen his father, who owned a small store near Mokpo, on Christmas when he and his wife brought him some kimchi. Oh’s father was last in touch with his family when Oh’s mother messaged him to check on him on Saturday night. He had responded that it was too loud where he was and couldn’t speak on the phone.

Oh, a bank teller also in Mokpo, said that his father had not even told him that he was going to Thailand, because he had not wanted his children to worry. He learned that his father was on the doomed flight only after the crash, when his father’s friends called to tell him. Oh jumped in his car with his wife and drove to the airport. As he got close, he could see the tail of the aircraft sticking out in the horizon.

His mother, who arrived separately, was initially in denial. “Is this real?” he recalled her saying. “I can’t believe what’s happening.” But the reality slowly sank in, and it shattered her.

Officials confirmed on Sunday night that Oh’s father was among the dead.

New York Times News Service