A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence, apparently because its front landing gear failed to deploy, killing at least 85 people, officials said, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
The National Fire Agency said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the town of Muan, about 180 miles south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry identified the plane as a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet and said the crash happened at 9:03 a.m. local time.
At least 85 people — 46 women and 39 men — died in the fire, the agency said. Emergency workers pulled out two survivors, both crew members, and local health officials said they remained conscious. Authorities said 32 fire trucks and several helicopters had been deployed to contain the fire.
Footage of the crash aired by YTN television 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. Other TV stations aired video showing thick black smoke billowing from the plane as flames engulfed it.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, said at a televised briefing that rescue workers were continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact. The plane was destroyed, with only the tail assembly recognizable among the wreckage, he said.
Workers were looking into what led to the crash, including whether the aircraft had been struck by birds that caused mechanical problems, Lee said. Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan separately told reporters that government investigators had 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. The Transport Ministry said that the plane was returning from Bangkok and that its passengers included two Thai nationals.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident. Paetongtarn said in a post on the social media platform X that she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
Jeju Air expressed its “deep apology” over the crash in a statement, and said it would do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident.”
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 a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, a Seoul-based Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring approximately 200.
Sunday’s 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 nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety.
The crash came amid a huge political crisis in South Korea triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law earlier this month and his ensuing impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, leading Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.
Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the plane’s passengers and crew before he headed to Muan. Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, would preside over an emergency meeting of senior presidential staff later on Sunday to discuss the crash.
Kim and Tong-Hyung write for the Associated Press.