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 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 hospitalized in Seoul.

A team of US investigators including representatives from Boeing on Tuesday examined the crash site while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country's airlines.

Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshot a runaway at South Korea's southern Muan International Airport before it slammed into a concrete fence and burst into a flame.

The plane was seen having engine trouble, and preliminary examinations also say the pilots received a bird strike warning from the ground control center and issued a distress signal. But many experts say the landing gear issue was likely the main cause of the crash.

At the Muan airport, a memorial altar was being set up on the first floor on Tuesday for relatives and visitors to lay flowers.

The victims included toddlers and grandparents, entire families, groups of friends, and couples. To those who waited anxiously at the airport this week, they were their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and children.

One man said that he had lost his nephew who had traveled to Thailand with his whole family, including his wife, two children, and mother-in-law. Another said that he had lost both of his parents.

Oh's father, who was 64, had been on vacation in Bangkok with seven childhood friends from Mokpo, a nearby city. In recent years, he often played golf with them in their free time, Oh said.

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 he 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.