Plane crash in South Korea leaves 179 dead

Only two survivors after Jeju Air Boeing 737 tries to land without undercarriage lowered at Muan International Airport

A passenger plane crashed on landing and burst into flames in south-western South Korea on Sunday, killing all but two of the 181 people on board, in what is one of the country's worst aviation disasters.

The Jeju Air Boeing 737 ploughed off the end of the runway and hit a wall at Muan International Airport, in South Jeolla province, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. The crash took place just after 9am local time.

Yonhap said 179 people on board Flight 2216 were confirmed dead, citing authorities. The only survivors were one woman passenger and one woman crew member, who were pulled from the plane and were being treated at hospital in the city of Mokpo.

The aircraft, with 175 passengers and six crew, had left Bangkok hours earlier. Most of the passengers were South Korean, except for two Thai nationals.

Footage aired by South Korean television showed the plane attempting to land without its landing gear lowered. It skidded along the ground, continued off the end of the runway and crashed into a concrete wall, before exploding in a ball of fire. The aircraft was almost completely destroyed.

Officials believe a bird strike may have disabled the landing gear, Yonhap said. Aviation authorities have begun an investigation.

“After the plane collided with the wall, passengers were thrown out of the aircraft. The chances of survival are extremely low,” a firefighting agency official told Yonhap.

“The aircraft has almost completely been destroyed, and it is difficult to identify the deceased,” the official said. “We are in the process of recovering the remains, which will take time.”

A temporary morgue has been set up at Muan International Airport, which lies about 290km south of the capital Seoul.

South Korea's Transport Ministry identified the plane as a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800. Boeing said on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company.

In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, apologised and bowed to bereaved families and said he took “full responsibility”. Mr Kim said the airline had not identified any mechanical problems with the plane in regular checks and Jeju Air would wait for the results of government investigations.

South Korea's Land Ministry said in a briefing that an airport control tower had warned of a bird strike at 8:54am. The pilot declared mayday at 8:59am and landed the plane at 9:03am without the landing gear deployed.

Authorities sent 32 fire engines and several helicopters to contain the blaze. About 1,570 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials attended the incident.

South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok visited the crash site on Sunday. He expressed condolences to bereaved families and promised assistance.

Authorities retrieved both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage, though it could take months for the exact cause of the crash to be determined.

The incident is the deadliest aviation disaster on South Korean soil, and the third most fatalities in a plane crash involving a South Korean airline.

The last time the country suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Air plane crashed in US western Pacific island territory Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring approximately 200.

Sunday's crash is also the first fatal incident in the history of Jeju Air, which was set up in 2005 and is one of South Korea's largest low-cost carriers.

On August 12, 2007, a Bombardier Q400 operated by Jeju Air carrying 74 passengers came off the runway due to strong winds at Gimhae International Airport, in the south-east of the country, resulting in a dozen injuries.

However, South Korea's aviation industry has a solid track record for safety, experts say.

– With agencies