Death toll climbs to 85 after plane crashes on landing
Eighty-five people have been confirmed dead after a plane caught fire during a landing at an airport in South Korea.
The National Fire Agency confirmed the death toll – 46 women and 39 men -in the southern city of Maun.
The fire engulfed the aircraft carrying 181 people when it skidded off the runway just after landing and struck a barrier.
The country’s emergency office said its landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.
Emergency workers pulled out two people, both crew members. Local health officials said they remain conscious.
It said it deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that rescue workers were continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact.
The plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognisable among the wreckage, he said.
Mr Lee said workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds that caused mechanical problems.
Senior Transport ministry official Joo Jong-wan separately told reporters that government investigators arrived at the site to investigate the cause of the crash and fire.
Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility 180 miles south of Seoul.
The transport ministry said the plane was returning from Bangkok and its passengers include two Thai nationals.
Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, who assumed responsibility after the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol and acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, was heading to the scene having ordered officials to employ all available resources.
Mr Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff on Sunday to discuss the crash.
Thailand’s prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected through a post on social platform X, saying she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997 when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.