By Dasl Yoon, Timothy W. Martin and Andrew Tangel
SEOUL -- At least 96 people died after a plane crashed Sunday while attempting to land at an airport in South Korea, according to the country's national fire agency.
The plane skidded off the runway and collided with a barrier at an airport in Muan County, located in the country's southwest, according to the fire agency. The crash occurred shortly after 9 a.m. local time. The flight, operated by South Korea's Jeju Air, had departed from Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew members aboard.
Rescue operations continued hours after the crash. Two people had been rescued. Choi Sang-mok, South Korea's acting president, said the country would use all personnel and equipment available. He arrived at the site of the crash about four hours after it had occurred.
The aircraft involved in the crash was a Boeing 737-800, a narrow-body jet, according to Flightradar24. It has a strong safety record and is a workhorse of commercial air travel. The 737-800 is a predecessor to the 737 MAX, which was involved in two separate fatal crashes and was grounded worldwide in 2019 for nearly two years.
Two Thai nationals were on board, with the rest of the passengers South Korean citizens, according to South Korea's Transportation Ministry. In a short statement on the company's website, Jeju Air apologized for causing concern and vowed to work toward resolving the situation.
South Korea's police imposed the highest level of the nation's emergency-alert system, allowing all available police forces to be deployed if necessary. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it had deployed medical and rescue personnel, including special forces, to provide on-site assistance. Helicopters were ready to be dispatched.
On-site investigators were still determining the cause of the crash.
The Jeju Air plane's body, according to video footage aired on South Korean TV networks, appeared to skid across the runway at Muan International Airport without the apparent deployment of its landing gear or flaps, which are movable surfaces on the wings that would allow the jet to slow during a typical landing. The aircraft burst into flames upon impact with a concrete barrier.
The Boeing 737-800 is one of the safest airplanes ever built, and an inability to lower the landing gear would be rare and have backstops, such as procedures or checklists to follow if there had been a deployment failure, said Jeff Guzzetti, a former senior accident investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration. Guzzetti, who is now an aviation-safety consultant, said he was puzzled by the crash.
Among the safeguards on the Boeing 737-800 is a system that would allow the pilots to let gravity lower the landing gear if other systems failed, said Guzzetti, who isn't involved in the accident investigation. He said he wondered whether the crew mistakenly tried to land without the plane's landing gear down, realized the mistake and attempted a "go-around" to redo the landing. That could explain why the plane was traveling so fast and so far down the runway, he said.
"If there was a failure there, why not continue to fly, burn off fuel so you don't have a lot of fuel on board?" Guzzetti said. "You call emergency rescue crews to be ready for you. I don't see any of that there."
Boeing said it was in contact with and stands ready to support Jeju Air. "We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew," Boeing said.
The plane is severely damaged, with only the aircraft's tail left relatively intact, a spokesman for Muan County's fire agency said at a press briefing. Verifying the identities of the victims was difficult because of the fire damage.
About 80 bodies were moved to a temporary morgue and were awaiting family members for identification, the Muan County public health center's director said during a briefing. Two flight attendants were rescued and transferred to hospitals in the region, the director said.
One of the surviving flight attendants, who had been seated at the rear of the Jeju Air plane, sustained a fractured left shoulder and injuries to the head, though was conscious and able to walk, according to South Korea's semiofficial Yonhap News Agency, citing local hospital officials.
"What happened?" the 33-year-old flight attendant told a doctor, Yonhap reported. The flight attendant recalled wearing a seat belt and the plane's landing, though had no memory afterward.
Jeju Air, named after a popular South Korean resort island, is a budget carrier that was founded in 2005. It operates 42 aircraft to more than 40 destinations, and handled more than 12 million passengers in 2023, according to the company's website.
Shares of Jeju Air have fallen about 30% this year, in the midst of growing competition between budget carriers to lower their fares. A weakened South Korean currency, the won, has caused costs to increase because fuel is generally purchased with U.S. dollars.
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com, Timothy W. Martin at Timothy.Martin@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 29, 2024 01:01 ET (06:01 GMT)
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