After its landing gear reportedly failed to deploy, an airliner in South Korea veered off a runway, collided with a concrete fence, and caught fire on Sunday. According to officials, one of the biggest aviation disasters in the nation killed all but two of the 181 people on board.
Arriving from Bangkok, the Jeju Air 737-800 crashed during the landing attempt in the town of Muan, which is roughly 180 miles south of Seoul.
The plane was seen driving across the airstrip at high speed, clearly with its landing gear still closed, and colliding with a concrete wall, causing an explosion, according to footage of the disaster that was broadcast by South Korean media channels. The jet was enveloped in flames, while other TV stations showed footage of dense, black smoke rising from it.
According to the South Korean fire agency, 179 persons were killed in the incident. Two crew members were brought to safety by emergency personnel. Health officials stated they appeared to have no life-threatening injuries and were aware.
Only the tail assembly of the plane remains identifiable in the debris, according to Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, who made this announcement during a televised briefing. According to Lee, officials were looking into the cause of the incident, including whether birds hit the aircraft.
According to ministry authorities, just before the plane was going to land, the control tower warned it about birds and allowed the crew to land at a another location. According to officials, just before the crash, the crew sent out a distress signal.
Workers recovered the jet’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders, according to senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan. Investigators may need months to finish their investigation, he said. According to the ministry, the Muan airport’s runway would be blocked until January 1.
On Sunday, December 29, 2024, a rescue crew attempts to put out a fire at the Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea.Newsis/Maeng Dae-hwan via AP
Former FAA safety team representative in the U.S. Kyle Bailey told Fox News that he thought the plane was flying too fast when it skidded on the runway and hit what he thought was a building that held instrument landing equipment.
“I believe that was the main factor that led to that airplane’s demise,” he stated.
According to Ju Woong, director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital, one of the survivors was receiving treatment for fractures to his upper spine, shoulder blade, and ribs. According to Ju, the unnamed man told medical professionals that when he woke up, he had been saved. There was no immediate information available about the other survivor.
Two passengers were from Thailand, but the majority of the passengers were from South Korea. According to the fire agency, 88 of them were identified by officials in the hours following the collision.
In a post on X, Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, offered his sympathies to the families of those on board. According to Paetongtarn, she gave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructions to offer support.
The father of a Thai passenger, Boonchuay Duangmanee, told The Associated Press that his daughter, Jongluk, had been visiting her family in Thailand after working for a number of years in a South Korean business.
He said, “I never imagined that this would be the final time we would ever see each other.”
In a statement, Thailand’s airports director Kerati Kijmanawat verified that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 took off from Suvarnabhumi Airport without any reports of any unusual activity on the runway or within the aircraft.
In a statement, Jeju Air apologized deeply for the disaster and promised to do everything in its power to handle the fallout.
The business’s president, Kim E-bae, apologized to the families of the deceased and expressed his whole responsibility for the crash during a televised news conference, bowing profoundly with other senior company officials. Kim stated that he would wait for the findings of government investigations into the incident’s cause and that the company had not found any mechanical issues with the aircraft after routine inspections.
At a lounge in the airport in Muan, relatives wept as authorities revealed the names of a few victims.
In a statement posted on X, Boeing said it was in communication with Jeju Air and was prepared to assist the airline in addressing the incident.
The disaster occurred during a period of political turmoil in South Korea brought on by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s unexpected declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment. Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok took over after South Korean parliament suspended interim President Han Duck-soo’s duties on Friday.
Choi, who visited the scene in Muan, urged authorities to identify the deceased as quickly as possible using all available tools. The government proclaimed a week-long national mourning period and designated Muan as a special disaster zone.
According to Yoon’s office, Chung Jin-suk, his chief secretary, chaired an urgent meeting of senior presidential staff to address the disaster and informed Choi of the specifics. In a Facebook message, Yoon offered his sympathy to the victims.
Pope Francis says he joined in prayer for the deceased and survivors in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
One of the deadliest incidents in South Korea’s aviation history is the Muan crash. When a Korean Airline plane crashed near Guam in 1997, killing 228 people on board, it was the last major air disaster to strike South Korea. Three people were killed and roughly 200 injured when an Asiana Airlines plane crashed into San Francisco in 2013.
According to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing air safety, Sunday’s accident was also among the worst landing mishaps since a July 2007 crash in which an Airbus A320 slid off a slick airstrip in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and struck a nearby building, killing all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground.
According to the safety foundation, an Air India Express plane overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, in 2010, fell into a ravine, and then burst into flames, killing 158 people.
— Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press
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