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| Korea's first firefighting helicopter Kkachi 2 / Courtesy of Cultural Heritage Administration |
By Park Han-sol
Korea's very first firefighting helicopter that saved nearly a thousand lives in catastrophic disasters over 25 years has been proposed to be designated as a national cultural asset, according to the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) and the National Fire Agency (NFA), Thursday.
Kkachi 2 is one of the two first firefighting choppers introduced by Seoul's firefighting department in December 1979.
From when it began operating in January 1980 until it was decommissioned in June 2005, the helicopter was mobilized more than 3,000 times, flying a total of 2,983 hours and 45 minutes.
Throughout its 25 years of rescue operations, Kkachi 2 has witnessed countless man-made and natural calamities, saving a total of 942 lives in the process.
It rescued five people from a fire at Lotte building in downtown Seoul in December 1983, and saved a whopping 630 lives from a flood in Gangdong District, southeastern Seoul, in September 1984.
It was also present as an airborne command post in a series of decade-defining moments marked by tragic disasters in the 1990s.
In October 1994, an entire section of Seongsu Bridge over the Han River in Seoul collapsed due to defects in construction materials and poor safety checks, killing 32 people. Because the incident took place early in the morning, many of the victims were commuters and students. Less than two months later, a gas explosion in Korea Gas Corporation's valve station in Ahyeon-dong, western Seoul, ended the lives of 12 people and injured 101.
The deadliest disaster in modern Korean history occurred just a year later as Sampoong Department Store in Seoul's posh southern Seocho District collapsed, a tragic event that still remains vivid in many people's memories. Before the building came down due to structural overload, store management failed to issue proper evacuation orders, resulting in an unusually high number of casualties: 502 deaths and 937 injuries.
As its twin Kkachi 1 was discarded after a crash in 1996, Kkachi 2 became the only surviving firefighting helicopter of the first generation in the country. It is currently displayed at the Boramae Safety Experience Center in Seoul.
Another piece of firefighting equipment to be designated as a cultural asset is a manual pump, which is a mechanical device operated manually to spray water. In Korea, these pumps were prevalent in use until the 1970s before fire trucks became common.
Among the four remaining domestically produced manual pumps nationwide, the one in Anyang Fire Station in Gyeonggi Province is in the best condition to be named as an asset, the NFA explained.
After 30 days of gathering feedback and opinions, the CHA will hold a committee review in February to decide whether to register the two pieces of firefighting equipment as assets.
