At least 62 people were killed Sunday when a Jeju Air plane from Bangkok crashed and caught fire while landing at Muan airport in southwest China. South Korea.
So far, two survivors and 62 dead
announced the firefighters in a press release, specifying that 37 of the deceased were women and 25 men.
The two people rescued at this point are a passenger and a crew member, they explained.
Several passengers were pulled from the rear of the plane, said Lee Hyeon-ji, head of the South Jeolla province fire response team.
According to authorities, the accident happened at 9:03 a.m. local time on Sunday. The plane was carrying 175 passengers, including two Thai nationals, and six crew members, between Bangkok and Muan, a city located about 290 kilometers south of the capital Seoul.
Landing problems
The accident appears to have been caused by contact with birds, leading to landing gear malfunction
reported the South Korean news agency Yonhap. The plane landed on its belly and caught fire when it hit a fence at the end of the runway, she added.
A video broadcast by local channel MBC shows the aircraft – a Boeing 737-8AS which entered service in 2009, according to the specialist site Flightradar – landing with smoke coming from the engines. The entire plane was then engulfed in flames.
Images broadcast by South Korean television channels show numerous emergency service vehicles and dozens of firefighters working around the carcass of the plane, completely charred except for the tail, and evacuating on stretchers of bodies wrapped in blue shrouds.
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A rescued passenger is taken to a hospital in Mokpo City, South Jeolla Province, South Korea.
Photo : Reuters / YONHAP
Acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok chaired an emergency government meeting and is traveling to Muan on Sunday afternoon, his office said. All agencies involved […] must mobilize all available resources to save people
he ordered in a press release.
This is the first fatal accident in the history of Jeju Air, one of South Korea's largest low-cost airlines, founded in 2005.
On August 12, 2007, a Jeju Air Bombardier Q400 carrying 74 passengers went off the runway in strong winds at Busan-Gimhae airport (south), causing around ten minor injuries.
Plane crashes are very rare in South Korea.
Last year, a passenger opened an emergency exit from a planeAsiana Airlines about to land. The aircraft was able to land normally, but several people were hospitalized.
