(MENAFN- Live Mint) A Boeing Co. 737-800 aircraft operated by Jeju Air Co. crashed and caught fire on an airport runway in South Korea, resulting in more than 170 people dead or missing.
Flight 2216 was carrying 175 passengers and six crew from Bangkok when the accident happened at Muan International Airport in the country's south, according to officials. At least 124 people were killed, two were rescued, while the remainder are unaccounted for, they said.
The disaster took place at about 9 a.m. local time on Sunday. Yonhap News Agency reported the landing gear of the Boeing single-aisle jet malfunctioned, causing it to land on its belly without its wheels deployed. It then hit a wall at the end of the runway.
Muan's control tower had warned of the risk of a bird strike about a minute before the pilot declared a Mayday, transport officials said at an afternoon briefing. Two minutes later, the crash occurred, they said.
Authorities said they've retrieved the flight-data recorder that contains vital statistics and performance metrics of a flight. They are still looking for the second so-called black box, the voice recorder that tapes conversations and sounds in the cockpit.
The accident stands to become the worst passenger airline disaster in South Korea in more than two decades, and takes place amid a deepening political crisis in Seoul after its president provoked public outrage by briefly imposing martial law earlier this month.
The 15-year-old aircraft, registered HL8088, entered service with Jeju Air in 2017. It was initially delivered in 2009 to Irish discount carrier Ryanair Holdings Plc, according to the Planespotters database. The jet was configured to seat as many as 189 passengers.
The plane underwent regular maintenance and there was no evidence or signs of malfunction during the checks, Kim E-Bae, chief executive officer of Jeju Air, said at a press briefing. He wouldn't speculate on the cause of the crash and said to wait for an official investigation to determine what had happened.
The fire agency said most of the plane was damaged except for part of its tail. Passengers were thrown out of the aircraft upon its impact with the wall, Yonhap reported, citing a fire official who said chances of survival were extremely low and identification of the dead is difficult. Boeing said it's in contact with Jeju Air and ready to support them.
More than 1,500 people including police, military, coast guard and local government personnel are assisting at the crash site, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Six air accident investigators are on the scenes conducting their initial investigation.
Two passengers of Flight 2216 were Thai citizens, while authorities are checking on other nationalities besides South Koreans, according to the transport ministry.
Founded in 2005, Jeju Air operates 42 aircraft, according to its website. The company pledged to provide all necessary support to the victims and their families.
The death toll from the Jeju Air crash would be the highest in South Korea since at least 2002. An Air China plane crashed near Busan that year, killing 129 people, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
The crash is the second major air disaster in less than a week. An incident in Russian airspace led to the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft on Dec. 25, killing dozens.
After a year of not a single fatal accident involving a large commercial aircraft in 2023, this year has seen a rising number of cases. Early in January, an approaching Japan Airlines Co. Airbus A350 crashed into a smaller plane on a runway in Tokyo, killing five occupants of the stationary plane.
A few days later, a door plug blew out of an airborne Boeing 737 Max 9 flying in the US. Though nobody was killed in that accident, the episode threw the US planemaker into deep crisis because it exposed sloppy workmanship at the company.
In August, a smaller ATR plane operated by Brazil's VoePass crashed near Sao Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport killing 58 passengers and four crew members.
With assistance from Aradhana Aravindan.
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