More than 170 people have died after a plane crashed as it was landing in South Korea on Sunday morning.
The Jeju Air plane came off the runway before colliding with a wall at Muan International Airport in the south west of the country.
The plane, which was returning from Bangkok, in Thailand, was carrying 181 people – 179 of whom have died, while two crew members were rescued from the wreckage.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, which fire officials have indicated may have occurred due to a bird strike and bad weather. However experts have warned the crash could have been caused by a number of factors.
Did a bird strike cause the crash?
The flight, 7C2216, was a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, Korea’s most popular budget airline.
The plane arrived in Muan at about 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT).
A South Korean transport official said that the plane had been attempting to land but was forced to hold off after air traffic control gave a bird strike warning – an alert about the risk of a collision with birds.
About two minutes later, the pilot called in a Mayday and air traffic command gave permission for the plane to land from the opposite direction, the official said.
One passenger on the flight messaged a relative, saying that a bird “was stuck in the wing” and that the plane could not land, local media reported.
One video appears to show the plane touching down without using its wheels or any other landing gear. It skidded down the runway and crashed into a wall before erupting into flames.
A witness told the South Korean news agency Yonhap that they heard a “loud bang” followed by a “series of explosions”.
Videos from the scene show the plane ablaze with smoke billowing into the sky. Fire crews have since extinguished the fire.
Lee Jeong-hyun, the chief of the Muan fire department, told a televised briefing that the tail section of the plane was identifiable but “one cannot recognise the shape of the rest of the plane”.
He said that the bird strike and bad weather may have caused the crash – but that the exact cause is still being investigated. The flight and voice recorders from the plane have been recovered.
The head of Jeju Air’s management said that the crash was not due to “any maintenance issues”, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The South Korean transport department said that the head pilot on the flight had held the role since 2019 and had more than 6,800 hours of flight experience.
What is a bird strike?
A bird strike is a collision between a plane in flight and a bird. They are very common – in the UK, there were more than 1,400 bird strikes reported in 2022, only about 100 of which affected the plane, according to data from the Civil Aviation Authority.
The best known bird strike occurred in 2009, when an Airbus plane ditched into New York’s Hudson River after colliding with a flock of geese. All 155 passengers and crew survived.
Professor Doug Drury, who teaches aviation at CQUniversity Australia, wrote in an article for The Conversation this summer that Boeing planes have turbofan engines, which can be severely damaged in a bird strike.
He said that pilots are trained to be especially vigilant during the early morning or at sunset, when birds are most active.
Who was on board?
The plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew. Two of the passengers were Thai and the rest are believed to have been South Korean, authorities have said. Many are thought to have been returning from a Christmas holiday in Thailand.
The official death toll stands at 179 – making it the deadliest plane crash in South Korean history.
All the passengers and four members of crew died.
Authorities have so far identified at least 88 bodies.
Five of the people who died were children under the age of 10. The youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78, authorities said, citing the passenger manifest.
South Korea’s National Fire Agency said two members of flight crew – a man and a woman – survived the crash. They were found in the tail side of the aircraft after the crash and taken to hospital, it said.
More than 1,500 emergency personnel have been deployed as part of recovery efforts, including 490 fire employees and 455 police officers. They have been searching the area around the runway for parts of the plane and those who were onboard.
What’s been the response?
Acting President Choi Sang-mok has declared a special disaster zone in Muan, which makes central government funding available to the local government and victims.
All flights to and from Muan International Airport have been cancelled.
Families of the victims of the crash have been travelling to the airport in the hope of finding out what happened to their relatives. Video footage from Reuters shows officials reading names of the victims out loud.
Airport authorities and the Red Cross have set up more than a dozen tents in the airport for bereaved families to grieve in private.
Sounds of crying echoed through the terminal. Some are frustrated at how long it is taking to identify the bodies.
Jeju Air has apologised to families. Its chief executive said in a news conference that the airline had no history of accidents. It is believed that Sunday’s crash has been the only fatal accident since the airline was launched in 2005.
Plane manufacturer Boeing has offered condolences to those affected.
Choi, South Korea’s acting president, said: “I express my deepest condolences to the many victims in the incident. I will do all I can for the injured to quickly recover.”
The government has declared a period of national mourning for the country for the next seven days, during which flags at government offices will be lowered.
