Plane skids, crashes into concrete wall and burns while landing in South Korea, killing 179

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.

Possible bird strike

John Cox, president of aviation consulting firm Safety Operating Systems LLC, based in Washington, D.C., said the footage indicates the plane may have taken a bird strike to one or both engines, but investigators will know more once they study the aircraft's black boxes and scour the engines for bird debris.

U.K. aviation expert Philip Butterworth-Hayes told Agence France-Presse that a strike to both engines would cause the aircraft to lose power, and pilots would have to activate the APU, or auxillary power unit, to get power back and gain more control over things like the landing gear.

"It may have been they did not have time to get the landing gear down by the auxiliary means because of having limited or no power from the engines," Cox told CBC News.

He said the aircraft initially appeared to be under control on the runway and was slowing down, "and would have come to a stop had that wall not been there."

Cox said under international standards, airports should have a clear area at the end of the runway so that "if an airplane does go off, it doesn't strike something."

"Aircraft engines are built to withstand a lot, including a bird strike," Butterworth-Hayes told AFP. "But if the birds are particularly large, they're in flocks and there's several of them, even a modern jet engine has problems going through it."

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.

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.

Low-cost airline

In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air's president, deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels "full responsibility" for the incident.

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 South Korea.

Kim said the company hadn't identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the crash.

Boeing said in a statement on X it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash. "We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew," Boeing said.

It's one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea's aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.

In an emergency meeting on Sunday evening, South Korea's acting president, Choi Sang-mok, declared a national mourning period until Jan. 4.

The crash came as South Korea is embroiled in a huge political crisis triggered by then-president Yoon Suk Yeol's stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment.

On Friday, South Korean lawmakers also impeached acting president Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, forcing president Choi to take over. He ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew, according to Yonhap news agency.