A Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea’s Muan International Airport crashed on arrival Sunday, veering off the runway, smashing into a barrier and bursting into flames, leaving all but two feared dead.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from Bangkok, was attempting to land shortly after 9 a.m. at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea’s transport ministry said. Fire officials said the death toll as of around 7:30 p.m. Sunday was at least 177, while two remained missing. The Yonhap news agency earlier cited an official as saying most of the 175 passengers and six crew were presumed dead.
It is the deadliest air accident involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to ministry data.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 can be seen in a video from local media skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flame and debris. Other photos showed smoke and fire engulfing parts of the plane.
Two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing. The fire was extinguished as of 1 p.m. local time, Lee said.
“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.
The two crew members were being treated at the hospital with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health center.
Hours after the crash, mortuary vehicles were lined up 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.
Authorities had worked to rescue people in the tail section, an airport official said shortly after the crash.
The crash is the worst by any South Korean airline since a Korean Air plane crash in Guam in 1997 that killed more than 200 people, according to transportation ministry data.
Investigators are looking into bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said. Yonhap cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.
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.
A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, the News1 agency reported. The person’s final message was, “Should I say my last words?”
The passengers included two Thai nationals and the rest are believed to be South Koreans, according to the transportation ministry.
The Boeing 737-800 jet, operated by Jeju Air, was manufactured in 2009, the transport ministry said.
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae apologized for the accident, bowing deeply during a televised briefing.
He said the cause of the crash was still unknown, that the aircraft had no record of accidents and there were no early signs of malfunction. The airline will cooperate with investigators and make supporting the bereaved its top priority, Kim said.
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire after an aircraft crashed on the runaway at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, on Sunday.
| Yonhap / via REUTERS
No abnormal conditions were reported when the aircraft left Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, said Kerati Kijmanawat, president of Airports of Thailand.
Founded in 2005, Jeju Air is a low-cost airline that operates international routes to Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines, in addition to numerous domestic flights.
Boeing said in an emailed statement, “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.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
All domestic and international flights at Muan airport had been canceled, Yonhap reported.
South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, named interim leader of the country on Friday in an ongoing political crisis, arrived at the scene of the accident and said the government was putting all its resources into dealing with the crash.
Two Thai women were on the plane, age 22 and 45, Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said, adding that details were still being verified.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sent condolences to the families of the dead and injured in a post on X, saying she had instructed the foreign ministry to provide assistance.
The ministry said in a statement it was in touch with the South Korean authorities.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed his condolences over the tragedy suffered by Japan’s neighbor.
“I am deeply saddened by the painful loss of so many precious lives due to the tragic airliner accident,” he said in a statement.
“On behalf of the Japanese government and people, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the victims and their bereaved families, and I pray for the speedy recovery of those who were injured.”