Fiery plane crash kills 179 in South Korea

he deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was trying to land shortly after 9 am local time at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea’s transport ministry said. Two crew members survived and were being treated for injuries.The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen in local media video landing on its belly at the Muan International Airport and skidding off the runway as smoke streamed out of the engines, before crashing into a wall and exploding in flames, killing everyone on board. except two crew plucked from the wreckage.”Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of [the plane] looks almost impossible to recognize,” Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a press briefing. The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Lee said.”Passengers were ejected from the aircraft after it collided with the wall, leaving little chance of survival,” a local fire official told families at a briefing, according to a statement released by the fire brigade. Only two people, both flight attendants, were rescued from the crash, it said.”Of the 179 dead, 65 have been identified,” the country’s fire agency said, adding that DNA retrieval had begun. Inside the airport terminal, tearful family members gathered to wait for news. An official began calling out the names of the 65 victims, with each name triggering fresh cries of grief.All of the passengers were Korean apart from two Thais, with the youngest a three-year-old boy and the oldest a 78-year-old, authorities said. The two survivors were transferred to separate hospitals in Seoul, the Yonhap news agency reported.Bits of plane seats and luggage were strewn across the field next to the runway. Authorities combed nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee said. Investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said.The control tower had issued a bird strike warning and, shortly afterwards, the pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said. A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, the News1 agency reported.The crash was the worst for any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, transportation ministry data showed. The previous worst on South Korean soil was an Air China crash that killed 129 in 2002.Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction. Experts, however, said the bird strike report and the way the aircraft attempted to land raised more questions than answers.”A bird strike is not unusual, problems with an undercarriage are not unusual,” said Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas. “Bird strikes happen far more often, but typically they don’t cause the loss of an airplane by themselves.”Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States, where the plane was built. The NTSB said later it was leading a team of US investigators to help South Korea’s aviation authority.Hours after the crash, family members gathered in the airport’s arrival area, some crying and hugging as Red Cross volunteers handed out blankets. Many victims appeared to be residents of nearby areas returning from vacation, officials said.Families screamed and wept as a medic announced the names of victims identified by their fingerprints. Papers were circulated for families to write down their contact details. Mortuary vehicles lined up outside to take bodies away, and authorities said a temporary morgue had been established.The aircraft was manufactured in 2009, the transport ministry said. The Boeing model involved in the crash, a 737-800, is one of the world’s most flown airliners with a generally strong safety record. It was developed well before the MAX variant involved in a recent Boeing safety crisis.It was the first fatal flight for Jeju Air, a low-cost airline founded in 2005 that ranks behind only Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines in terms of the number of passengers in the country. Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae apologized for the accident, bowing deeply during a televised briefing.Kim said that the aircraft had no record of accidents and there were no early signs of malfunction, adding that the airline will cooperate with investigators and make supporting the bereaved its top priority.All domestic and international flights at the airport were canceled after the accident, Yonhap reported. The crash site smelled oSend feedbackSide panelsHistorySaved