SEOUL, South Korea – An airliner skidded off a road, crashed into a concrete fence and burst into flames Sunday in South Korea after its landing gear failed to operate. All but two of the 181 people on board died in one of the country's worst aviation disasters, officials said.
The 737-800 operated by Jeju Air arrived from Bangkok and crashed while trying to land in the city of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul.
Images of the crash broadcast by South Korean television channels showed the plane skidding off the airport at high speed, apparently with the landing gear still off, then hit a concrete wall and exploded. Some television stations broadcast images showing black smoke billowing from the plane engulfed in flames.
The accident killed 179 people, South Korea's fire department said. Emergency personnel pulled the two members to safety. They were awake and did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, health officials said.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a television news conference that the plane was completely destroyed, with the tail assembly still visible in the crash. Officials were investigating the cause of the crash, including whether the plane was struck by birds, Lee said.
The control tower issued a warning about birds on the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave the crew permission to land in a different location, department officials said. The crew sent the message just before the crash, officials said.
Transport Ministry chief Joo Jong-wan said the crew recovered the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders. He said it could take months for investigators to complete their investigation. The runway at Muan Airport will be closed until Jan. 1, said the department.
Kyle Bailey, who represented the FAA's safety team in the US, told Fox News that it appeared to him that the plane was traveling at high speed as it skidded down the road before hitting what he believed to be a landing gear structure.
“I think that's what caused the disaster on that plane,” he said.
One of the survivors was being treated for broken ribs, a shoulder and upper spine, said Ju Woong, director of Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. Ju said the man, whose name has been withheld, told the doctors that he “woke up and found (him) saved.” Details about the other survivor were not available.
The passengers were mostly South Koreans and included two people from Thailand. Officials identified 88 people in the hours after the crash, fire officials said.
The prime minister of Thailand, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed his condolences to the families of those on board the plane in a letter X. Paetongtarn said he had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance.
Boonchuay Duangmanee, the father of the Thai passenger, told the Associated Press that his daughter, Jongluk, had been working at a factory in South Korea for several years and returned to Thailand to visit her family.
“I never thought that this would be the last time we see each other forever,” he said.
Kerati Kijmanawat, director of Thai Airways, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 took off from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of anything wrong with the plane or the runway.
Jeju Air in a statement expressed its “profound apologies” for the accident and said it would “do everything possible to control the consequences of the accident.”
In a televised press conference, the company's president, Kim E-bae, bowed deeply along with other company executives while apologizing to the bereaved families and saying he felt “full responsibility” for the accident. Kim said that the company has not identified that there are mechanical problems in the plane following the inspection and said that he will wait for the results of the government's investigation into the cause of the incident.
Family members wept as officials announced the names of the other victims at the Muan airport lounge.
Boeing in a statement to X said that it has been in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with this accident.
The incident occurred as South Korea grapples with a political crisis caused by President Yoon Suk Yeol's imposition of martial law and impeachment. On Friday, South Korean lawmakers replaced Acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, which led to Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok taking over.
Choi, who visited the site in Muan, asked officials to use all available resources to identify the dead as soon as possible. The government declared Muan a special disaster area and designated a week-long period of national mourning.
Yoon's office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, oversaw an emergency meeting among the president's senior staff to discuss the accident and reported the details to Choi. Yoon expressed his condolences to the victims in a letter he wrote on Facebook.
In St. Peter's Square in Rome, Pope Francis said he participated in “prayer for the survivors and the dead.”
The Muan crash is one of the worst tragedies in South Korean aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a major aviation disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring about 200.
Sunday's crash was also one of the worst landing accidents since the July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 were on the ground when an Airbus A320 leaving an airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, crashed into a nearby building. from data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to improving air safety.
In 2010, 158 people were killed when an Air India Express flight overran the runway in Mangalore, India, and plunged into a ravine before bursting into flames, according to a security source.
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