Jeju Air jet crashes in South Korea with more than 170 dead or missing

Heejin Kim and Danny Lee, Bloomberg News on Dec 28, 2024

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A Jeju Air Co. plane landing in South Korea crashed on an airport runway and caught fire, resulting in more than 170 people dead or missing.

Flight 2216 was carrying 175 passengers and 6 crew members from Bangkok when the accident happened at Muan International Airport in the country’s south, according to officials. While two people were rescued, 85 were killed and the remainder were unaccounted for, they said.

The disaster took place at around 9 a.m. local time on Sunday. Yonhap reported that the landing gear of the Boeing Co. 737-800 jet malfunctioned, causing it to land on its belly without its wheels deployed. It then hit a wall at the end of the runway.

The accident stands to become the worst passenger airline disaster in South Korea in decades, and takes place against the backdrop of a deepening political crisis in Seoul after the president provoked public outrage by briefly imposing martial law.

The fire agency said assumptions around the cause of accident include worsening weather and bird strikes. More than 700 people were sent to help search for survivors at the crash site, it said.

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.

(Sarina Yoo and Aradhana Aravindan contributed to this report.)