Air crash tests South Korea's acting president two days into the job

By Cynthia Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - When South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok arrived at the scene of the deadliest air disaster on the country's soil on Sunday, he had been on the job for less than 48 hours.

Choi, the country's finance minister, became acting leader on Friday night after the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who had been acting president since President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and suspended from power on Dec. 14 following his short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

The bewildering turnover at the top of Asia's fourth-largest economy and one of its most vibrant democracies left the government scrambling when Jeju Air flight 7C2216 slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport on Sunday, killing most of the 181 people on board.

Choi visited the site a few hours after the crash and declared it a special disaster zone.

"The government would like to offer its sincere condolences to the bereaved families and will do its best to recover from this accident and prevent a recurrence," he said.

Behind the scenes, government offices were still figuring out the chain of command and how press statements would be released, a ministry spokesperson and four other officials told Reuters. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning.

"Today Choi went to Muan with land ministry officials, not finance ministry officials," a spokesperson said. "A team of transportation ministry officials and safety ministry officials will report directly to Choi regarding the Muan plane crash for next few weeks. As for how we will distribute press releases on all his schedules - still undecided."

Each ministry involved in foreign policy, administrative issues or safety has teams reporting to Choi, but Yoon's presidential staff does not, and Choi is operating from a government complex in Seoul rather than any official residence, one official said.

A senior finance ministry official said it is still undecided who, if anyone, from Yoon's and Han's offices would report to Choi. Some of Choi's duties as finance minister have been delegated to the vice minister, the ministry official added.

"The central disaster control team meetings are minister-level meetings, so the land minister and safety minister report directly to Choi," this official said.

Choi is leading that centralised disaster control team instead of the prime minister, who would typically be in charge based on a manual prepared after the 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewol, which killed 304 people, and the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush that killed 159 people in 2022, a fourth official said.

The political upheaval in South Korea was sparked when Yoon unexpectedly declared martial law on Dec. 3, only to rescind the order within hours after parliament defied military and police cordons to vote against Yoon.

The opposition-led parliament accused him of insurrection and abuse of power and impeached him, and later Han.

Choi will serve as acting president while the Constitutional Court determines the fates of Yoon and Han.

The uncertainty comes as South Korea tries to manage volatile foreign exchange markets and faces the task of preparing for the administration of President-elect Donald Trump in the United States, which is Seoul's main ally.

(Reporting by Cynthia Kim; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by William Mallard and Raju Gopalakrishnan)