At least 176 people have died when a passenger plane caught fire after skidding off a runway and crashing at an airport in South Korea’s Muan city, the country’s National Fire Agency said.
The accident occurred on Sunday at 9.03 a.m. local time (00:03 GMT) as the Jeju Air flight, carrying 175 passengers and six crew.
It was coming from the Thai capital Bangkok and landed at Muan International Airport located about 289km (179 miles) southwest of the capital Seoul.
The National Fire Agency confirmed that 176 people have died. Victims comprised 83 women, 82 men and 11 others, whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable.
Emergency responders rescued two people, both crew members. The fire that engulfed the plane was extinguished, the agency said.
Citing fire agency officials, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said that hopes are fading for survivors.
“There seems to have been some kind of malfunction with the landing gear.
Images on the media here appear to show the plane landing on its belly, skidding along the runway, followed then by a huge explosion,” Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Seoul, said.
“Eyewitness accounts have talked then about a series of explosions and certainly images that we have been seeing have shown a catastrophic fire,” McBride said.
The plane, a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet, was carrying two Thai passengers and the rest were South Koreans.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has expressed deep condolences to the families of the crash victims.
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In a post on social media, Shinawatra ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to investigate if Thai passengers were on the plane and to provide “assistance immediately”.
An official from South Korea’s Transport Ministry’s Aviation Department said a bird strike was among several theories for the accident.
Although the theories have not been verified an investigation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered “all-out efforts for rescue operations” at Muan airport.
“All related agencies… must mobilise all available resources to save the personnel,” he told officials in a statement.
Jeju Air, one of South Korea’s largest low-cost carriers, which was set up in 2005, issued an apology for the crash, saying it would “do everything in our power in response to this accident”.
The crash is Jeju Air’s first fatal accident.
However, in August 2007, a Bombardier Q400 came off the runway. This was due to strong winds at the southern Busan-Gimhae airport, resulting in a dozen injuries.
The plane, carrying 74 passengers, was operated by the airline.
Experts say that South Korea’s aviation industry has a solid track record for safety. (Al-Jazeera)
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