A passenger plane skidded off the runway at a South Korean airport on Sunday, crashed into a concrete fence and burst into flames after its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy. All but two of the 181 people on board died in one of the country's worst aviation disasters.
The Jeju Air plane crashed while landing in the city of Muan, about 290 kilometers south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 that had arrived from Bangkok and that the crash occurred at 9:03 a.m.
A total of 179 people – 85 women, 84 men and 10 others whose genders were not immediately identifiable – died in the fire, South Korea's fire agency said. Emergency workers pulled two people, both crew members, to safety. Health officials said they are aware and not life-threatening.
Among the 177 bodies found so far, authorities have so far identified 88, the fire agency said. The passengers were predominantly South Koreans, as well as two Thai nationals. Thailand's Foreign Ministry said its embassy in Seoul received confirmation from South Korean authorities that the two Thai passengers were among the fatalities.
Firefighters deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire. About 1,570 firefighters, police, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the scene, according to the fire agency and the Ministry of Transportation.
Images of the accident broadcast by South Korean television channels showed the plane skidding down the runway at high speed, apparently with the landing gear still closed, overtaking the runway and crashing head-on into a concrete wall in the outside the facility, causing an explosion. Other local television stations broadcast images showing thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, said in a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed with only the tail remaining recognizable in the wreckage. Lee said workers were investigating several possibilities for the cause of the crash, including whether the plane was hit by birds, Lee said.
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Transportation Ministry officials later said their initial evaluation of communications records show that the airport control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it attempted to land and gave the pilot permission to land at a different area. The pilot sent a distress signal shortly before the plane overshot the end of the runway and skidded through a buffer zone before hitting the wall, officials said.
Joo Jong-wan, a senior official at the Ministry of Transportation, said workers recovered flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the plane's black box, which will be examined by government experts who will investigate the cause of the crash and the fire. He said investigators could take months to complete their investigation. The runway at Muan airport will be closed until January 1, the ministry said.
Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra expressed his deepest condolences to the families of those affected by the incident in a post on social media platform
Kerati Kijmanawat, director of Airports Thailand, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air Flight 7C 2216 took off from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of abnormal conditions on the plane or on the runway.
Jeju Air expressed in a statement its “deep apology” for the accident and said it will do “everything possible to manage the consequences of the accident.”
In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, president of Jeju Air, bowed deeply to other senior company officials as he apologized to the grieving families and said he felt “full responsibility” for the incident. Kim said the company had not identified any mechanical problems with the plane after regular checks and would await the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.
Relatives cried as officials announced the names of some victims in a lounge at Muan airport.
Boeing said in a statement on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to help the company deal with the accident.
“We express our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.
The incident came as South Korea is embroiled in a massive political crisis sparked by President Yoon Suk Yeol's stunning imposition of martial law and subsequent impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, prompting Vice Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.
Choi, who traveled to the scene in Muan, called on officials to use all available resources to find the missing and identify the victims as soon as possible. The government declared Muan a special disaster area to provide assistance to victims' families and designated a week-long national mourning period until Saturday.
Yoon's office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, chaired an emergency meeting among senior presidential staff to discuss the accident and reported details to Choi. Yoon expressed his condolences to the victims in a Facebook post.
The Muan crash is one of the deadliest disasters in South Korean aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco, killing three people and injuring approximately 200.
Sunday's incident was also one of the worst landing mishaps since a July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 slid off a slippery runway in Sao Paulo and crashed. with a nearby building, according to data. compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group whose goal is to improve aviation safety. In 2010, 158 people were killed when an Air India Express plane skidded off a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before bursting into flames, according to the safety foundation. World leaders expressed their condolences as South Korea dealt with the tragedy.
During his Angelus prayer in Rome's St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis said he joins in the “prayer for the survivors and the dead.” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he was “deeply saddened by the loss of many precious lives” in a message released through the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in X that “every life lost is an immeasurable tragedy” and that he extends his “deepest condolences” on behalf of the Ukrainian people and himself.
— With files from Bobby Caina Calvan, Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul, Jintamas Saksornchai, Mari Yamaguchi and Giada Zampano of The Associated Press
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