A passenger plane carrying 181 people, including six crew members, crashed in southwestern South Korea early Sunday, killing at least 122 people, according to Korea’s National Fire Agency.
This would mark the worst aviation crash accident involving a Korean airline since a Korean Air Lines Co.’s plane crash in Guam in 1997, which killed 229.
A plane operated by Korea’s Jeju Air Co., which departed Bangkok earlier, was scheduled to land at Muan International Airport at 8:30 am but failed in an earlier attempt because it could not lower its landing gear, according to the aviation authorities.
When the plane attempted a belly landing without the deployment of its landing gear about 30 minutes later, it was rammed into a wall near the end of the runway after touching down and engulfed in a huge fire and flames, several Korean TV footages of Korean news media showed.
Rescuers have found122 dead as of midday on Sunday.
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The fire department is also skeptical that rescuers would find more people alive, citing the badly destroyed plane broken into many pieces with only its tail section recognizable.
The rescue operation has now turned into a recovery operation.
Of the 181 people on board, two passengers were Thai nationals, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry confirmed. Other foreign nationals have not been yet reported.
The cause of the accident is not confirmed but the landing gear malfunction was believed to have been caused by a bird strike, according to unnamed sources.
One TV footage showed a fire in one of the plane’s engines while flying over the airport before its final landing.
One of the two rescued crew members also told investigators the one of the plane’s engines exploded with smoke as it approached the airport for landing.
The plane was a Boeing 737-800, which has been widely used by low-cost airlines. Jeju Air started operating the crashed plane 15 years ago.
Crediblenewsng.com
