Hanwha Aerospace CEO Son Jae-il apologized Monday after a deadly explosion at the company’s Daejeon facility killed five workers, pledging full cooperation with authorities and a thorough investigation into the cause of the accident.
“I bow my head in apology to those who lost their perilous lives in the accident that occurred at the Daejeon facility and to their bereaved families,” Son said at a media briefing held at the site Monday afternoon. “As CEO. I feel a heavy sense of responsibility for this accident. We failed to protect the lives of employees at what should have been a safe workplace.”
Son said the company will provide all necessary support to the victims’ families and take full responsibility for the treatment and recovery of injured workers.
“We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities to determine the exact cause of the accident,” Son said. “We take this accident with the utmost seriousness and will fundamentally reexamine and strengthen our safety system to ensure that such an incident never happens again.”
The explosion occurred at around 11 a.m. in a cleaning facility within the company’s Daejeon site in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. The explosion left five dead and two injured, who are currently under treatment.
Following the accident, Son convened an emergency response meeting at the company’s Seoul headquarters and traveled to the accident site in Daejeon.
In a separate statement shared earlier, Hanwha Group and Hanwha Aerospace apologized to the public, expressing condolences to the victims and pledging full cooperation with investigators.
The exact cause is not yet known, but the company officials said preliminary findings suggest the accident may have occurred during a cleaning process.
“It appears that a fire occurred while workers were cleaning explosive residue left on tools used in the propellant manufacturing process,” Ga Jae-woong, chief of the Daejeon plant told reporters at the site.
"We will determine exactly what caused the accident through a thorough investigation. At this stage, it is difficult to identify the precise cause of the explosion."
The Daejeon facility is one of Hanwha Aerospace's key aerospace and defense research and production sites, housing its Precision Guided Munitions division. At the site, the company produces the long-range surface-to-air missile, Chunmoo multiple launch rocket system and the Cheongeom air-to-ground guided missile, among others. The facility also develops and produces large-scale propulsion systems and handles propellant mixing and loading operations.
The accident marks the latest in a series of fatal incidents at the Daejeon facility.
In May 2018, an explosion at the site killed two workers at the scene, while three others later died from injuries sustained in the accident. In February 2019, another explosion occurred in a propellant processing facility, killing three workers.
sahn@heraldcorp.com
