MUAN (RUETERS): At least 85 people were killed when an airliner landed without wheels, veering off the runway and erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at South Korea’s Muan International Airport on Sunday, the national fire agency said.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 181 people on board, was attempting to land shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea’s transport ministry said.
The ministry also confirmed the casualties in the deadliest air accident involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades.
Two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing. The fire was extinguished by 1 p.m., Lee said.
“Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognize,” he said.
Authorities have switched from rescue to recovery operations and because of the force of the impact, are searching nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee added.
The two crew were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health centre.
Yonhap news agency cited a fire official as saying most of 175 passengers and six crew were presumed dead. At least 58 bodies have been recovered but that number is not final, another fire official told Reuters.
Authorities had worked to rescue people in the tail section, an airport official told Reuters shortly after the crash.
Video shared by local media showed the twin-engine aircraft skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flame and debris. Other photos showed smoke and fire engulfing parts of the plane.
