Seoul, Dec 29 (IANS): A passenger jet carrying 181 people belly-landed and exploded at an airport in South Korea's southwestern county of Muan on Sunday, leaving 176 people dead and three others missing, authorities said. Two crew members survived.
It marked yet another deadliest aviation disaster in the country's history and the worst involving a local airline since the deadly 1997 Korean Air plane crash in Guam that killed 228.
The accident happened at around 9 a.m. when the Jeju Aeroplane, carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, veered off the runway while landing at Muan International Airport in Muan County, South Jeolla Province, about 288 kilometres southwest of Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported.
The plane skidded along the ground without its landing gear deployed, crashing into a concrete wall before bursting into flames with a deafening explosion.
The authorities confirmed 176 deaths from the accident and classified the remaining three as missing persons.
They said search operations will continue overnight to find the three who are still unaccounted for. Earlier, the authorities said they had identified 22 victims.
"After the plane collided with the wall, passengers were thrown out of the aircraft. The chances of survival are extremely low," a firefighting agency official said.
"The aircraft has almost completely been destroyed, and it is difficult to identify the deceased," the official said. "We are in the process of recovering the remains, which will take time."
The 181 people were aboard the Boeing 737-800 plane that had departed from Bangkok at 1:30 a.m. It was scheduled to arrive in Muan at around 8:30 a.m.
Most of the passengers were Koreans, except for two Thai nationals.
Of those on board, 82 were men, and 93 were women, ranging in age from as young as three to 78 years old. Many were in their 40s, 50s and 60s.
A temporary morgue has been set up inside the Muan airport to lay the bodies of the victims.
Only the two crew members survived the accident as they were rescued shortly after the crash. They were treated at separate hospitals in Mokpo and have now been transported to Seoul. Their injuries were not life-threatening.
Officials believe the landing gear failure, possibly due to a bird strike, may have caused the accident. They began an on-site investigation to determine the exact cause.
The land ministry said in a briefing that an airport control tower had warned of a bird strike just six minutes before the crash.
One minute later, the pilot of the Jeju Aeroplane declared "Mayday," an international distress signal sent from a plane in a critical situation.
The South Jeolla authorities raised emergency alerts to the highest levels and deployed all available rescue and police personnel to the accident site.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok declared Muan County a special disaster zone as he visited the crash site to instruct officials to make all-out efforts for search operations.
Choi also expressed deep condolences to the bereaved family members and promised to offer them all possible government assistance.
The presidential office convened an emergency meeting of top secretaries earlier in the day and decided to maintain a round-the-clock emergency system for timely responses to the search and other operations.
At the meeting, presided over by Presidential Chief of Staff Chung Jin-suk, the officials also discussed ways for interagency coordination on the probe into the accident and medical and other support.
Acting National Police Agency Commissioner-General Lee Ho-young also ordered officials to mobilise all available resources and work with firefighting and other related agencies to help with the rescue efforts.
Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae issued an apology and extended condolences to the family members who lost their loved ones, vowing to provide all necessary support to the victims' families.
"Regardless of the cause, I take full responsibility as the CEO," Kim said.