At least 176 passengers dead after bird strike sends South Korean plane skidding into concrete wall
29 December 2024, 06:43 | Updated: 29 December 2024, 09:52
All except two of the 181 passengers on board the plane are presumed dead in South Korea's deadliest ever plane crash.
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At least 124 people have been confirmed dead after a plane caught fire during a landing at an airport in South Korea.
The National Fire Agency confirmed the death toll in the southern city of Maun.
The fire engulfed the aircraft carrying 181 people when it skidded off the runway just after landing and struck a barrier.
Two people have been rescued, with all other 179 currently presumed dead as rescue operations continue.
It is the deadliest plane crash in South Korea's history, after the 2002 Air China plane crash which killed 129 people.
The country's emergency office said the crash was caused by a malfunction in the plane's landing gear.
Emergency workers pulled out two people, both crew members. Local health officials said they remain conscious.
It said it deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that rescue workers were continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact.
The plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognisable among the wreckage, he said.
Mr Lee said workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds that caused mechanical problems.
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.
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 180 miles south of Seoul.
The transport ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet returning from Bangkok and its passengers include two Thai nationals.
Jeju Air in a statement expressed its "deep apology" over the crash and said it will do its "utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident."
In a televised news conference, the company's president Kim E-bae deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologised to bereaved families and said he feels "full responsibility" for the incident.
Mr Kim said the company had not identified any mechanical problems in the aircraft following regular checks and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.
Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, who assumed responsibility after the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol and acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, was heading to the scene having ordered officials to employ all available resources.
Mr Yoon's office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff on Sunday to discuss the crash.
Thailand's prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected through a post on social platform X, saying she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
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.
It was 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, Brazil, and collided with a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety.
