By Hongji Kim, Hyunsu Yim and Ju-min Park
MUAN, South Korea (Reuters) -At least 85 people were killed when an airliner landed without wheels, veering off the runway and erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at South Korea’s Muan International Airport on Sunday, the national fire agency said.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 181 people on board, was attempting to land shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea’s transport ministry said.
Trusted news and daily delights, right in your inbox
See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.
The ministry also confirmed the casualties in the deadliest air accident involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades.
Two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing. The fire was extinguished by 1 p.m., Lee said.
“Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognise,” he said.
Authorities have switched from rescue to recovery operations and because of the force of the impact, are searching nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee added.
The two crew were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health centre.
Yonhap news agency cited a fire official as saying most of 175 passengers and six crew were presumed dead.
At least 58 bodies have been recovered but that number is not final, another fire official told Reuters.
Authorities had worked to rescue people in the tail section, an airport official told Reuters shortly after the crash.
Video shared by local media showed the twin-engine aircraft skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flame and debris. Other photos showed smoke and fire engulfing parts of the plane.
‘MY LAST WORDS’
The crash is the worst by any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, according to transportation ministry data.
Investigators are looking into bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said. Yonhap cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.
A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, the News1 agency reported. The person’s final message was, “Should I say my last words?”
The passengers included two Thai nationals and the rest are believed to be South Koreans, according to the transportation ministry.
The plane was a Boeing 737-800 jet operated by Jeju Air, which was seeking details of the accident, including its casualties and cause, an airline spokesperson said. The transport ministry said the plane was manufactured in 2009.
Jeju Air posted a message apologising for the accident.
Boeing said in a emailed statement, “We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding flight 2216 and stand ready to support them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
All domestic and international flights at Muan airport had been cancelled, Yonhap reported.
South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, named interim leader of the country on Friday in an ongoing political crisis, arrived at the scene of the accident and said the government was putting all its resources into dealing with the crash.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sent condolences to the families of the dead and injured in a post on X, saying she had instructed the foreign ministry to provide assistance.
The ministry said in a statement it was in touch with the South Korean authorities.
(Reporting by Hongji Kim in Muan, Hyunsu Yim, Ju-min Park, Cynthia Kim and Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Gram Slattery in Washington and Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and William Mallard)
