The greatest airline catastrophe in South Korea – a fiery crash  kills at least 174 people.

On Sunday, at least 174 people were murdered in South Korea’s bloodiest air accident ever, when an airplane belly-landed and went off the runway, exploding in a blaze as it collided with a wall at Muan International Airport. Jeju Air (089590.KS), opens new tab aircraft 7C2216, arriving from Thailand’s capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six staff on board, was attempting to land at the country’s southern airport soon after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), according to South Korea’s transport ministry. Two crew members were recovered, and officials believe the others are dead. The deadliest flight disaster on South Korean land was also the worst involving a South Korean airline in almost 30 years.

The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was shown in local television footage rolling down the runway with no apparent landing gear before colliding with the wall in an explosion of flames and debris. “Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognise,” Lee said during the briefing. Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing that two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the flaming plane’s tail area. They were being treated in hospitals for medium to serious injuries, according to the head of the local public health facility.

Lee added that investigators are looking into probable causes such as bird attacks and meteorological conditions. According to Yonhap, airport authorities believe a bird hit caused the landing gear to fail.
According to Lee, authorities were looking for remains that may have been thrown from the plane. Hours after the disaster, family members gathered in the airport’s arrival area, some sobbing and hugging, while Red Cross workers distributed blankets. Families yelled and wailed as a physician delivered the names of 22 fatalities recognized by fingerprints. Papers were distributed for families to jot down their contact information.
One relative stood at a microphone to get additional information from authorities. “My older brother died and I don’t know what’s going on,” he told me.

Another person requested media not to film. “We are not monkeys in a zoo,” he explained. “We are the bereaved families.” Mortuary cars queued up outside to transport remains, and officials reported a makeshift morgue had been erected. According to Reuters witnesses, the crash scene smelled of aviation fuel and blood, and workers wearing protective gear and masks combed the area while military looked through the undergrowth. Authorities were working to rescue those in the tail section, an airport official told Reuters soon after the disaster. According to transportation ministry records, this is the deadliest catastrophe for a South Korean airline since the 1997 Korean Air tragedy near Guam, which killed over 200 people.

The control tower gave a bird strike warning, and the pilots declared mayday before attempting to land, according to a transportation ministry official. According to News1, a passenger texted a relative to report that a bird had been entangled in the wing. The person’s final message read, “Should I say my last words?” According to the transportation ministry, the passengers included two Thai nationals, with the others presumed to be South Koreans. The transport ministry stated that the aircraft was produced in 2009. The two CFM56-7B26 engines were built by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aerospace (GE.N) and France’s Safran (SAF.PA), according to the transport ministry.

Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae apologized for the disaster, bending deeply at a live conference. He stated that the aircraft had no history of mishaps and showed no early indicators of failure. Kim stated that the airline will cooperate with investigations and prioritize care for the bereaved. According to KeratiKijmanawat, head of Airports of Thailand, no abnormal circumstances were recorded as the aircraft left Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.It is the first deadly flight for Jeju Air, a low-cost airline launched in 2005 that is second only to Korean Air Lines (003490.KS) and Asiana Airlines in terms of passenger traffic in South Korea. The disaster occurred barely three weeks after Jeju Air began regular flights from Muan to Bangkok and other Asian destinations.

South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, who was appointed temporary leader of the country on Friday amid an ongoing political crisis, arrived at the scene of the disaster and stated that the government was devoting all of its efforts to coping with the tragedy. The plane carried two Thai ladies, aged 22 and 45, according to Thai government spokeswoman JirayuHoungsub, who added that data were still being confirmed. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra expressed condolences to the relatives of the deceased and injured in a post on X, stating that she has directed the foreign ministry to give aid.