179 people were confirmed to have been killed with two people rescued from the wreckage after a plane crash at a South Korean airport on Sunday. There were a total of 175 passengers and six crew members aboard Jeju Air Flight 2216, which had taken off from Bangkok, Thailand, shortly after 2 a.m. local time (2 p.m. Saturday ET), according to the flight-tracking platform FlightAware.
According to Joo Jong-wan, director of the Aviation Policy Division at South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft skidded off the runway while landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea (about 180 miles south of Seoul), bursting into flames after veering off the runway and crashing into a wall.
Prior to the plane’s crash landing, the control tower issued a warning of a possible bird strike, the transport ministry shared. About a minute after that warning, a pilot sent a mayday distress signal, after which the tower issued permission for the aircraft to land. According to the Air and Railway Investigation Committee, the aircraft’s “black boxes” were recovered from the wreckage.
The plane’s flight data recorder (FDR) was found partially damaged and its cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was collected intact, officials said, however decrypting the FDR data could take about a month. If the damage to the FDR is severe, it will be sent to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for decoding, which could take more than six months.
The National Fire Agency said that 83 of the deceased were women and 82 were men, adding that another 11 bodies remained unidentified. According to the flight manifest, there were five children under 10 years old on the flight, the youngest of them 3 years old. A man and a woman – both crew members – were rescued from the wreckage and were taken to the hospital, according to the transport ministry.
President Biden said in a statement Sunday afternoon that he and first lady Jill Biden were “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life … as close allies, the American people share deep bonds of friendship with the South Korean people and our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by this tragedy. The United States stands ready to provide any necessary assistance.”
Jeju Air is a South Korean low-cost carrier that operates an all Boeing fleet, with 42 planes and nearly 3,000 staff. They said in a notice posted in English on its website: “We deeply apologize to all those affected by the incident at Muan Airport. We will make every effort to resolve the situation. We sincerely regret the distress caused.”
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