The story is a domestic ferry run that failed in daylight within reach of other boats.
Korean television made the list visible in real time. The legal story took eighteen months to reach the Supreme Court.
Beats
- A converted ferry
Sewol’s Japanese hull was rebuilt for more passengers and freight. Stability paperwork did not match the ship that sailed. Chonghaejin’s load practice on the Jeju route is part of the court record.
- Late departure, morning turn
The 15 April sailing left Incheon behind schedule. On 16 April a turn in the channel produced a list that grew instead of righting.
- Stay-put and abandonment
Internal announcements held passengers in cabins. Senior crew left. That contrast — not a graphic of the interior — is the ethical centre of the verdicts.
- Rescue that stopped at the hull
Nearby fishing boats and Coast Guard craft took people from the water and open decks. The intact-looking hull on television hid how few were still being brought out.
- From negligence to life
A 2014 trial called the captain’s crime negligence. The 2015 appeals court and Supreme Court called the same facts homicide by wilful negligence and locked the life sentence.
Sewol’s story is a stability failure plus a command failure, dated and tried, not an unsolved sea mystery.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.