Firefighters carry out extinguishing operations on a runaway plane at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, on December 29, 2024.
Yonhap | Via Reuters
At least 174 people were killed in South Korea's deadliest air accident on Sunday, when a passenger plane nosedived, veered off the runway, and exploded in a fireball as it crashed into a wall at Muan International Airport.
The South Korean Ministry of Transport said that flight No. 7C2216 of Jeju Air, coming from the Thai capital, Bangkok, with 181 people on board, attempted to land shortly after nine in the morning (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country.
Two crew members were rescued, and officials indicated that the rest of those on board were presumed dead.
The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to the Ministry of Transport.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 plane was seen in a video published by local media sliding down the runway with no visible landing gear before hitting the wall and exploding in flames and debris.
“Only the tail portion retains some shape, and the rest (of the plane) seems almost unrecognizable,” Lee told a news conference.
Lee Jong-hyun, head of the Muan Fire Department, said at a press conference that the crew members, consisting of a man and a woman, were rescued from the back of the burning plane. The head of the local public health center said they were being treated in hospitals with moderate to serious injuries.
Lee said investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors. Yonhap News Agency quoted airport authorities as saying that a bird collision may have caused a malfunction in the landing gear.
He told me that authorities were searching nearby areas for bodies that may have been thrown from the plane.
“My last words”
Hours after the accident, family members gathered in the airport's arrivals area, some crying and hugging as Red Cross volunteers distributed blankets.
Families screamed and cried loudly as a paramedic announced the names of 22 victims identified through their fingerprints.
Papers were distributed to families to write down their contact details.
One of his relatives stood at the microphone to request more information from the authorities. “My older brother died and I don't know what's going on,” he said.
“I don't know.”
Another asked journalists not to photograph. “We are not monkeys in a zoo,” he said. “We are the bereaved families”
Morgue cars were lined up outside to transport bodies, and authorities said a temporary morgue had been set up.
Reuters witnesses said the crash site smelled of jet fuel and blood, and workers wearing protective suits and masks combed the area while soldiers searched the bushes.
An airport official told Reuters shortly after the accident that authorities worked to rescue people in the tail section.
The accident is the worst of its kind for any South Korean airline since the 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, according to Transportation Ministry data. The worst accident on South Korean soil was the Air China plane crash, which killed 129 people.
Lee said investigators are looking into bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors. Yonhap quoted airport authorities as saying that a bird collision may have caused a malfunction in the landing gear.
A Ministry of Transport official said that the control tower issued a bird collision warning and shortly after that the pilots declared a state of emergency, without specifying whether the flight said it had collided with any birds.
The official said that shortly after the distress call, the plane made its ill-fated attempt to land.
News1 reported that a passenger sent a text message to a relative to tell him that a bird was stuck in the plane's wing. The person's final message was: “Should I say my last words?”
The passengers included Thai citizens, and the rest were believed to be from South Korea, according to the Ministry of Transport.
Jeju Airlines says the bereaved have top priority
The Ministry of Transport said the plane, a Boeing 737-800, operated by Jeju Air, was manufactured in 2009.
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae apologized for the incident, bowing deeply during a televised news conference.
He added that the cause of the accident is still unknown, and that the plane has no accident record and there are no early signs of malfunction. Kim said the airline will cooperate with investigators and will make supporting victims its top priority.
No abnormal conditions were reported when the plane left Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, said Kirati Kejmanawat, president of Thailand Airports.
It's the first fatal flight for Jeju Airlines, a low-cost airline founded in 2005 that trails only Korean Air and Asiana Airlines in terms of passenger numbers in South Korea.
The accident occurred just three weeks after it began its regular flights from Muan to Bangkok and other Asian cities on December 8.
Muan International is one of South Korea's smallest airports, but it saw the number of international passengers jump about 20 times to 310,702 in the January-November period this year, compared with the same period in 2022, according to government data.
Boeing “We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding Flight 2216 and stand ready to support them,” he said in an emailed statement. “We extend our sincere condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yonhap reported that all domestic and international flights at Muan Airport were cancelled.
Acting South Korean President Choe Sang-mok, who was appointed the country's interim president on Friday amid an ongoing political crisis, arrived at the scene and said the government was putting all its resources into dealing with the incident.
Thai government spokesman Jiraeu Hongsub said that two Thai women were on board the plane, aged 22 and 45, adding that details were still being verified.
Thai Prime Minister Pitongtarn Shinawatra sent her condolences to the families of the dead and wounded in a post on Channel X, saying she had instructed the Foreign Ministry to provide assistance.
The ministry said in a statement that it is in contact with the South Korean authorities.
