South Korean Plane Crash: Tragic Incident with High Casualty Toll and Investigation Underway

A passenger plane skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport on Sunday, slammed into a concrete fence and burst into flames after its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy. All but two of the 181 people on board died in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The country’s National Fire Agency (NFA) said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometres south of the capital, Seoul.

Emergency officials later confirmed there were only two survivors. Workers pulled two crew members to safety. Health officials said they are conscious and not in life-threatening condition.

Family members cried as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport.

Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the 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.

Local TV stations aired footage showing the aircraft engulfed in flames, with thick pillows of black smoke billowing from it. The NFA deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the blaze. About 1,560 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the site, the agency said.

Emergency officials in Muan said they were examining the cause of the fire, initially saying the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage. Lee said that workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said.

Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said workers have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders in the plane’s black box, which will be examined by government experts investigating the cause of the crash and fire. Joo said the runway at the Muan airport will be closed until Jan. 1.

The ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that was returning from Bangkok when the crash occurred at 9:03 a.m. local time, and its passengers included two Thai nationals.

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident through a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Paetongtarn said she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide immediate assistance.