At least 174 dead in worst airline disaster in South Korea
The story is updated with new information.
SEOUL− At least 174 people were killed in the deadliest air accident ever in South Korea on Sunday, when an airliner belly-landed and veered off the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.
Jeju Air 089590.KS flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was attempting to land shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea's transport ministry said.
Two crew members were rescued, and officials have suggested the rest on board are presumed dead.
The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was also the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to the transport ministry.
"Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognize," Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing.
The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Lee said. They were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health center.
Investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said. Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.
Authorities were searching nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee said.
The crash is the worst for any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, according to transportation ministry data. The previous worst on South Korean soil was an Air China crash that killed 129 in 2002.
The control tower issued a bird strike warning and shortly afterward the pilots declared mayday and then pilots attempted to land, a transport ministry official said.
A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, the News1 agency reported. The person's final message was, "Should I say my last words?"
The passengers included two Thai nationals and the rest are believed to be South Koreans, according to the transportation ministry.
The aircraft was manufactured in 2009, the transport ministry said.
The plane was a Boeing 737-800 jet operated by Jeju Air, which was seeking details of the accident, including its casualties and cause, an airline spokesperson said.
Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
All domestic and international flights at Muan airport had been cancelled, Yonhap reported.
South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, who was named interim leader of the country on Friday after the previous acting president was impeached amid an ongoing political crisis, ordered all-out rescue efforts, his office said.
His chief of staff convened an emergency meeting.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim, Ju-min Park, Cynthia Kim, and Hyunjoo Jin; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and William Mallard)