Two people, both crew members, were rescued and officials have confirmed that the rest of the passengers perished in the crash.
It is the deadliest air accident ever on South Korean soil, and the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to ministry data.
The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a briefing.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen in a video broadcast on local media skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flames and debris.
The previous most deadly air accident in South Korea was in 2002, when a Boeing 767-200 operated by Air China crashed into a hill near South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan, killing 129 people and injuring 37.
The crash at Muan International Airport is the first fatal accident involving the country’s biggest budget airline, which was founded in 2005.
The Muan international airport runway will remain closed until Wednesday.
Here are previous plane crashes in South Korea or involving South Korean airlines:
- In September 1983, Korea Airlines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet jet when it strayed into Soviet airspace over Sakhalin island, killing all 269 people on board.
- In July 1993, a Boeing 737-500 operated by Asiana Airline landed several kilometers (miles) short of the runway at South Korea’s Mokpo airport in poor weather. More than 60 people died.
- In August 1997, Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-3B5B (747-300) operated by Korean Air, plowed into a hill near Guam’s international airport, killing 228 out of 254 people on board.
REUTERS
