A Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 overran the runway and exploded during an emergency landing in South Korea on Sunday morning, killing 179 of 181 people in the country’s deadliest aviation accident on domestic soil. Two crew members survived.
The aircraft, with tail number HL8088, attempted a belly landing at Muan International Airport at 9:03 a.m. local time after a possible bird strike and landing gear failure. The plane skidded off the runway and slammed into a concrete wall before bursting into flames, authorities said.
According to South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the airport control tower warned of a bird strike at 8:54 a.m. The pilot declared mayday five minutes later before attempting the emergency landing without landing gear.
The aircraft’s final ADS-B transmission was recorded at an altitude of 500 feet on initial approach to Runway 01, according to FlightRadar24.com.
Flight 7C-2216 from Bangkok carried 175 passengers — including two Thai nationals and 173 South Koreans — along with six crew members.
“After the plane collided with the wall, passengers were thrown out of the aircraft,” a firefighting agency official was quoted in a Yonhap news agency report. “The aircraft has almost completely been destroyed, and it is difficult to identify the deceased.”
Investigators have retrieved both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok declared Muan county a special disaster zone and announced a seven-day national mourning period. Choi said the government will offer all possible assistance to the bereaved families.
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-Bae, who arrived at the airport 11 hours after the crash, faced angry reactions from victims’ families. The low-cost airline has pledged support through its $1 billion insurance plan.
Regardless of the cause, I take full responsibility as the CEO.
Kim E-bae, Jeju Air CEO
The crash marks the third-deadliest incident involving a South Korean carrier, following the 1983 shoot-down of Korean Air flight 007 (Boeing 747-230B) by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor, which killed 269 people, and the 1997 Korean Air flight 801 accident in Guam (Boeing 747-3B5) that claimed 225 lives.
A temporary morgue has been established at Muan airport as recovery operations continue. The airport’s only runway remains closed.
The involved aircraft, acquired by Jeju Air in 2017, previously flew for Ryanair from 2009 to 2016. The aircraft’s manufacturer, Boeing, said it is in contact with Jeju Air and offered condolences to the victims’ families.
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