A passenger plane caught fire at an airport in South Korea on Sunday (December 29, 2024) after it skidded off the runway and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to work, killing at least 177 people, officials said, making it one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
The national fire agency said the fire was almost extinguished but officials were still trying to evacuate people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the city of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul.
Emergency workers pulled out two people – a passenger and a crew member. It said it deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to tackle the blaze.
Footage of the crash broadcast by YTN television showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the runway, apparently with its landing gear still locked, and crashing into a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility. The transport ministry said the incident occurred at 9:03 a.m. local time.
Emergency officials said they were investigating the cause of the fire. They said the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned. The transport ministry said the plane was returning from Bangkok and its passengers included two Thai nationals.
It is one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea had a massive air crash was in 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.