South Korea plane crash kills almost all 181 people on board after suspected bird strike

Two crew members have been rescued but all other missing people are now presumed dead, according to firefighters.

The youngest victim was a three-year-old boy, according to a list of passengers seen by local media outlets, and five of those killed were children under the age of 10.

The incident is the deadliest disaster in South Korea's aviation history.

The Boeing 737-800 jet - Jeju Air flight 7C2216 from Bangkok - was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members.

It was making a second attempt at a crash landing after its landing gear failed to open, local media reports.

Witnesses on the ground reported hearing a "loud explosion" and seeing sparks in the plane's engine before it crashed.

The plane veered off a runway at Muan International Airport and crashed into a wall, bursting into flames.

Officials say birds may have struck an engine before the crash, reports Yonhap News Agency.

The airport's control tower warned the plane about the bird strike and gave the pilot permission to land in a different area to normal, according to South Korea's transport ministry.

A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing of the plane, News1 reports.

Their final message was said to have been: "Should I say my last words?"

The pilot sent out a distress signal shortly before the crash, officials said.

Workers have now retrieved the flight data recorder from the plane's black box and are still looking for the cockpit voice recording device, said senior transport ministry official Joo Jong-wan.

The two crew members who were rescued are in hospital and talking. "Smoke came out of one of the engines and then it exploded," Ms Ku, a female flight attendant in her 20s, told Yonhap news agency.

Another survivor, flight attendant Mr Lee, 33, reportedly asked a doctor who was checking him over in hospital: "Why did I end up here?"

He added: "I was wearing my seatbelt before landing, and it seemed like the plane had landed, but I don't remember anything after that."

He suffered a fractured left shoulder and head injuries, according to the Aju Business Daily newspaper.

Passenger concerns

Just two days ago, a passenger claiming to have travelled on the same plane said it had an engine shut down as people were boarding, according to Sky's correspondent in the region, referencing Yonhap News Agency.

A passenger who boarded the Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 said: "I was on the same plane at the time and the engine shut off several times."

He said he'd set off from Muan International Airport for Bangkok and became worried: "I told the flight attendants and they said there was no problem."

Other passengers, he claimed, also had concerns and the plane was delayed for an hour "due to airport issues".

Weather conditions were also being looked at as a possible cause of the crash.

South Korea's worst aviation disaster will mean tough questions for Jeju Air

This is South Korea’s worst domestic civil aviation disaster.

The video from the ground sees the plane exploding into a fireball.

A local fire official said the crash had likely been caused by a bird strike and weather conditions.

But others suggested the strike may have been caused by the landing gear failing.

Experts said South Korea’s aviation industry has a solid track record for safety and this was the first fatal accident Jeju Air had experienced since it was launched.

In a press conference, the chief executive of the company said the plane that crashed did not have previous records of accidents.

He also added there were no early signs of the plane malfunctioning.

He has vowed to cooperate with the government in investigating the cause of the accident.

And he can expect tough questioning - this is a catastrophic crash and the many bereaved families will be looking for answers.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, said rescue teams were searching for bodies scattered by the impact of the crash.

The plane was completely destroyed with only the tail recognisable among the wreckage, he added.

Officials said the fire has been extinguished and South Korea's transport ministry said the incident happened at 9.03am local time on Sunday (shortly after midnight in the UK).

What is Jeju Air and what is the safety record of the Boeing 737-800?

Jeju Air is South Korea's largest low-cost airline, with more than 12.3m passengers last year. Formed in 2005, the company is named after Jeju Island - located to the south of the Korean Peninsula - which is home to the airline's headquarters.

The company has more than 3,000 employees and more than 40 aircraft, most of them Boeing 737-800s - a model widely used around the world.

South Korea is well-regarded in safety terms, and is rated Category 1 in the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) International Aviation Safety Assessment Program. Meanwhile, Jeju Air received an "A" - "very good" - safety grade in the latest South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's annual review of domestic airlines, according to the New York Times.

The Boeing 737-800 was launched in 1994 by US company Boeing to replace its older 737 models, and it competes with the Airbus A320. The plane was used in its first commercial flight in 1997.

Nearly 5,000 have been sold worldwide since the launch of the 737-800, with Ryanair, United Airlines and American Airlines among the largest operators of the planes. Often described as the "workhorse" of major commercial airlines due to its widespread use, the aircraft has an extremely good safety record.

While Boeing 737-800s have been involved in previous fatal crashes, most have been put down to poor weather conditions, pilot error, or other factors.

The last fatal crash involving a 737-800 was China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 in March 2022, when a plane crashed in Wuzhou, China, after descending steeply mid-flight. The crash is still under investigation by China's civil aviation, though multiple reports have suggested the plane was deliberately crashed.

Other previous fatal crashes include in March 2016, when a Flydubai flight landing at Rostov-on-Don, Russia, crashed on the final approach in inclement weather, killing all 62 people on board.

More than 150 people were also killed in an Air India Express flight in May 2010, when a 737-800 overran the runway at Mangalore airport. A report later found that the plane's captain had continued an unstabilised approach, despite three calls from the first officer to initiate a "go-around".

Authorities are now attempting to confirm the identities of victims using the passenger manifest with aircraft seating positions.

Twenty-two people have been identified so far, according to the Jeonnam Fire Department.

Among those on board were 173 South Koreans and two Thai people, local media reports.

All domestic and international flights from Muan International Airport have been cancelled.

The last time the country suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 2002, when an Air China aircraft crashed into a hill near the airport in Busan, killing 129 people.

-SKY NEWS