A passenger jet carrying 181 people belly-landed and exploded at an airport in South Korea's southwestern county of Muan on Sunday, leaving 177 people dead and two others missing, authorities said. Two crew members survived, reported South Korean news agency (Yonhap).It marked yet another deadliest aviation disaster in the country's history, and the worst involving a local airline since the deadly 1997 Korean Air plane crash in Guam that killed 225.The accident happened at around 9 a.m. when the Jeju Air plane, carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, veered off the runway while landing at Muan International Airport in the Muan county, South Jeolla Province, about 288 kilometers southwest of Seoul.The plane skidded along the ground without its landing gear deployed, crashing into a concrete wall before bursting into flames with a deafening explosion.The authorities confirmed 177 deaths from the accident and said two crew members were rescued, with the remaining two classified as missing.They said search operations will continue overnight to find the two who are still unaccounted for. Earlier, the authorities said they had identified 22 victims.The 181 people were aboard the Boeing 737-800 plane that had departed from Bangkok at 1:30 a.m. It was scheduled to arrive in Muan at around 8:30 a.m.Most of the passengers were Koreans, except for two Thai nationals.Only the two crew members survived the accident as they were rescued shortly after the crash. They were treated at separate hospitals in Mokpo and have now been transported to Seoul. Their injuries were not life-threatening.Officials believe the landing gear failure, possibly due to a bird strike, may have caused the accident. They began an on-site investigation to determine the exact cause.The land ministry said in a briefing that an airport control tower had warned of a bird strike just six minutes before the crash.The South Jeolla authorities raised emergency alerts to the highest levels and deployed all available rescue and police personnel to the accident site.Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae issued an apology and extended condolences to the family members who lost their loved ones, vowing to provide all necessary support to the victims' families.’Regardless of the cause, I take full responsibility as the CEO,’ Kim said. (QNA)
