A passenger plane at a South Korean airport went off the runway, hit a concrete fence, and caught fire Sunday after its front landing gear didn’t seem to work. In one of the worst flight accidents in U.S. history, all but two of the 181 people on board died.
It crashed as it tried to land in the town of Muan, which is about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry said the plane was a Boeing 737-800 jet that was 15 years old and had come from Bangkok. The crash happened at 9:03 a.m.
The South Korean fire service said that 179 people died in the fire. Of those, 85 were women, 84 were men, and 10 were people whose genders weren’t immediately clear. Responders pulled two people to safety; both were crew members. Health officials said they are awake and not in a state that could kill them.
The fire agency said that 88 of the 177 bodies that have been found so far have been named. Most of the people on board were South Korean, but there were also two Thai people.
The man who was hurt was being treated in an urgent care unit at the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital by Ju Woong, who is the director of the hospital. The man had broken ribs, a shoulder blade, and his upper spine. The man, whose name was not given, told doctors that he “woke up to find himself rescued,” Ju said.
South Korean TV stations showed footage of the crash. It showed the plane sliding across the airstrip at high speed, with what looked like its landing gear still closed. It went off the runway and hit a concrete wall on the edge of the facility, setting off an explosion.
Other TV stations in the area showed video of thick clouds of black smoke rising from the burning plane.
Chief of the Muan fire station Lee Jeong-hyeon said on TV that the plane was completely destroyed and that only the tail assembly could be seen among the rubble. Lee said that there were many ideas being considered about what might have caused the crash, such as the possibility that birds hit the plane.
Later, officials from the Transport Ministry said that an early look at the communication records shows that the airport control tower warned the plane about a bird strike just before it was supposed to land and told the pilot he could land in a different area. Officials say the pilot sent out a distress call not long before the plane crashed.
A senior official from the Transport Ministry named Joo Jong-wan said that the flight data and cockpit voice records from the plane’s black box have been recovered. He said that the investigation might take months to finish. They said that the Muan airport runway would be closed until January 1.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, wrote on the social network X that he was very sorry for the families of those who died in the accident. According to Paetongtarn, she told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help right away.
An AP reporter talked to the father of a Thai victim and learned that his daughter, Jongluk, had been working in a factory in South Korea for a few years and had now come back to Thailand to see her family.
“I think the plane went off in Korea this morning.” “But I had no idea my daughter would be on this flight,” he said. I never thought this would be the last time we saw each other for good.
In a statement, Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of Airports of Thailand, stated that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 took off from Suvarnabhumi Airport and that there were no reports of any problems with the plane or the runway.
In a statement, Jeju Air said it was “deeply sorry” for the crash and would do its “utmost to handle the aftermath of the accident.”
At a news meeting shown on TV, Kim E-bae, president of Jeju Air, bowed deeply with other top company officials as he apologized to the families of the victims and said he takes “full responsibility” for what happened. Kim said that after regular checks, the company hadn’t found any mechanical problems with the plane. He also said that he would wait for the results of government reviews into what happened before making any decisions.
In a lounge at Muan Airport, family members sobbed as the names of some of the dead were read out loud.
In a statement on X, Boeing said it was in touch with Jeju Air and ready to help the company deal with the crash. Boeing said, “Our deepest condolences go out to the families who lost loved ones. Our thoughts are also with the passengers and crew.”
The event happened while South Korea was in the middle of a major political crisis caused by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s shocking decision to declare martial law and then be impeached.
South Korean lawmakers removed acting President Han Duck-soo from office last Friday and put him on administrative leave. Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok then took over.
Choi went to the scene of the crime in Muan and asked officials to use all of their tools to find the missing and name the victims as soon as possible. The government made Muan a special disaster zone so that families of the dead could get help. They also set Saturday as the first day of a week-long national mourning period.
Yoon’s office said that his top secretary, Chung Jin-suk, led an emergency meeting of senior presidential staff to talk about the crash and told Choi about it. Yoon wrote on Facebook that he felt bad for the victims.
The pope said he joins in “prayer for the survivors and the dead” during his Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square, Rome. Japan’s Foreign Ministry shared a message from Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in which he said he was “deeply saddened by the loss of many precious lives.”
The Muan crash is one of the worst aircraft accidents in South Korea’s history. In 1997, a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing all 228 people on board. This was the last big air accident in South Korea. Three people died and about 200 were hurt when an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco in 2013.
The crash on Sunday was also one of the worst landing accidents since July 2007, when an Airbus A320 slid off a wet airstrip in Sao Paulo and hit a nearby building, killing all 187 people on board and 12 more on the ground. The Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group working to improve air safety, collected the data.
The safety foundation says that in 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express plane went off the runway in Mangalore, India, and crashed into a gorge before catching fire.
