A passenger plane has burst into flames after it skid off a runway at a South Korea airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing 179 out of 181 people on board in one of the deadliest air disasters in that nation's history. There were only two survivors, officials said.
The Jeju Air passenger plane crashed while landing in the town of Muan, about 290 km (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that was returning from Bangkok and that the crash happened at 9:03 am.
The passengers were predominantly South Korean, as well as two Thai nationals.
Two crew members – one male and one female – were rescued from the tail of the plane, another official said on condition of anonymity. The two were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health centre.
Emergency workers sift through the wreckage at the site of the crash. – AP
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that rescue workers are continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact.
"Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognize," he said.
Authorities have switched from rescue to recovery operations and because of the force of the impact, are searching nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee added.
About 1560 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the site, the fire agency said.
Moment: Aircraft erupts into a fireball shortly after landing in South Korea. – Reuters
Footage of the crash showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility.
Workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds that caused mechanical problems, Lee said. Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan separately told reporters that government investigators arrived at the site to investigate the cause of the crash and fire.
The control tower issued a bird strike warning and shortly afterward the pilots declared mayday, a transport ministry official said, without specifying whether the flight said it struck any birds.
About one minute after the mayday call the aircraft made its ill-fated attempt to land, the official said.
Workers have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the plane’s black box, which will be examined by government experts investigating the cause of the crash and fire, Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said. He earlier said that government investigators arrived at the site to investigate the cause of the crash and fire.
Emergency officials in Muan said the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.
Aviation industry expert Geoffrey Thomas said the wall the plane slammed into should not have been "anywhere near runway."
"I would say that absolutely contravenes international standards to have that wall there, no question about it," Thomas said.
Flight tracker shows route of crashed Jeju Air plane from Bangkok. - Flightradar24 via Reuters
A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, agency News1 reported. The person's final message was, "Should I say my last words?"
Bird strike is among several theories that have not been verified, an official from the transport ministry's aviation department said, adding that the investigation was ongoing.
The transport ministry said the incident happened at 9.03am local time. It said the plane was returning from Bangkok.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident. She said she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of the Airports of Thailand, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of abnormal conditions with the aircraft or on the runway.
In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the incident. Kim said the company hadn’t identified any mechanical problems in the aircraft following regular check-ups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.
'I bow in apology': Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae delivers his condolences to the families of those who died in the crash. - Ap
Boeing said in a statement on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash.
"We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding flight 2216 and stand ready to support them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew," Boeing's statement said. “We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.
Acting South Korean president Choi Sang-mok said there were a "large number of casualties". When Choi arrived at the scene, he had been on the job for less than 48 hours.
Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew.
"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.
In an emergency meeting on Sunday evening, Choi declared a national mourning period until January 4.
Impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, would preside over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff later in the day to discuss the crash.
All domestic and international flights at Muan airport have been cancelled.
Aviation industry commentator Geoffrey Thomas says a bird seems to have impacted the right engine. - Reuters
Hours after the crash, family members gathered in the airport's arrival area, some crying and hugging as Red Cross volunteers handed out blankets.
Families screamed and wept loudly as a medic announced the names of 22 victims identified by their fingerprints.
Papers were circulated for families to write down their contact details.
One relative stood at a microphone to ask for more information from authorities. "My older brother died and I don’t know what’s going on," he said. "I don’t know."
Another asked journalists not to film. "We are not monkeys in a zoo," he said. "We are the bereaved families."
Mortuary vehicles lined up outside to take bodies away, and authorities said a temporary morgue had been established.
The crash site smelled of aviation fuel and blood, according to witnesses, and workers in protective suits and masks combed the area while soldiers searched through bushes.
Rescue operators have expanded their search radius as they search for passengers who may have been blown from the cabin. - Reuters
It’s one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when an Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.
The accident 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 slick airstrip in Sao Paulo and collided with a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit group aimed at improving air safety.
In 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before erupting into flames, according to the safety foundation.
The previous most deadly air accident in South Korea was in 2002, when a Boeing 767-200 operated by Air China 601111.SS crashed into a hill near South Korea's southeastern port city of Busan, killing 129 people and injuring 37.
Major plane crashes in or involving South Korea
- In September, 1983, Korea Airlines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet jet when it strayed into Soviet airspace over Sakhalin island, killing all 269 people on board.
- In July 1993, a Boeing 737-500 operated by Asiana Airline landed several kilometres (miles) short of the runway at South Korea's Mokpo airport in poor weather. More than 60 people died.
- In August 1997, Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-3B5B (747-300) operated by Korean Air, ploughed into a hill near Guam's international airport, killing 228 out of 254 persons on board.
- In July 2011, an Asiana Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft crashed in the sea off South Korea's Jeju Island. This was later determined to have been caused by a fire in the cargo hold. Both pilots were killed.
- In July 2013, Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed at the San Francisco airport when the Boeing 777 jetliner's tail struck a seawall short of the runway, sending the aircraft into a spin, leading to the deaths of three teenage passengers from China and injuries to more than 180 passengers out of about 300 people on board.