The official death toll is 120, while firefighters continue to work in the area and check the condition of the victims
A total of 179 people died this Sunday in the crash of a Jeju Air plane at Muan airport, in southwestern South Korea, according to preliminary information from firefighters.
According to the South Korean public news agency Yonhap, emergency teams managed to rescue two survivors, a crew member and a passenger, from the plane that had 181 people on board.
The official death toll is 120, while firefighters continue to work in the area and check the condition of the victims, although they have already noted that the majority are “presumed dead” and that the official number is expected to increase drastically in the coming hours.
The previous provisional balance of what is already one of the worst air disasters in the history of South Korea pointed to at least 85 deaths.
The plane was “almost completely destroyed” and the passengers and crew had “little chance of surviving”, firefighters said.
“The passengers were ejected from the plane when it collided with a barrier, leaving them with little chance of survival,” said a local firefighter, during a meeting with the victims’ families.
“The plane is almost completely destroyed and identifying the deceased is proving difficult,” he added.
The plane, with 175 passengers and six crew members on board, crashed at around 9:07 am (00:07 am in Lisbon) while landing at the airport in the city of Muan, in the south of South Korea, about 290 kilometers from the capital, Seoul.
According to police and firefighters, the plane, a Boeing 737-8AS coming from Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, collided with a concrete fence and caught fire.
Airport authorities said the plane was attempting a forced landing after a first attempt failed due to a landing gear failure.
However, the plane would not have been able to reduce speed until it reached the end of the runway, which caused the collision with the fence and the fire.
Muan fire department chief Lee Jeong-hyun said the crash was likely due to a bird strike combined with adverse weather conditions.
The country’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, ordered all possible efforts to be made in rescue operations following the accident.
Thailand’s Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed in a statement the presence of two citizens on the plane and said the country is in contact with Seoul.
Nikorndej Balankura urged the families of these two citizens to call the Thai embassy in Seoul to receive more information.
The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a plane belonging to the South Korean airline Korean Airline crashed in the US territory of Guam, killing all 228 people on board.
