Attempted Belly Landing Without Extending Landing Gear, Collided with Outer Wall... 179 Dead in 'Worst Disaster'

On the 29th, a Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 passengers collided with the outer wall of the runway while landing at Muan International Airport, causing a fire that resulted in a major disaster with most passengers dead. Firefighters are searching for missing persons among the wreckage of the accident aircraft on the runway at Muan International Airport, Jeonnam. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung

A Jeju Air flight 7C2216 carrying 181 people, including passengers and crew members, collided with the outer wall of the runway while landing at Muan International Airport, causing a fire that resulted in 179 deaths and 2 injuries. The Jeju Air passenger plane disaster has become the deadliest aviation accident in South Korea.

According to the Fire Agency, as of 9:07 PM on the 29th, the death toll from Jeju Air flight 7C2216 was confirmed at 179, with 2 survivors. The flight had a total of 181 people on board, including 175 passengers, 4 cabin crew members, and 2 pilots.

At around 9:03 AM that day, Jeju Air flight 7C2216 attempted a "belly landing" on the runway at Muan Airport with the landing gear (aircraft wheels) not deployed, but collided with the outer wall, causing most of the aircraft to be engulfed in flames.

The main cause of this tragedy is being pointed to as aircraft malfunction due to a "bird strike." The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport held a briefing at the government Sejong complex that afternoon, announcing that "the Muan International Airport control tower warned the flight of a 'bird strike' just before landing."

However, experts agree that a bird strike alone is unlikely to cause such a major disaster and emphasize the need for thorough analysis of the accident's causes. It is expected to take at least several months to years to determine the exact cause of this accident.

The deadliest aviation accident in South Korea prior to this was the 1993 Asiana Haenam crash, which resulted in 66 deaths. The scale of casualties in this tragedy is more than twice that.

The deadliest domestic aviation accident in history was in 1983 when a Korean Air Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet fighter near Kamchatka in the former Soviet Union, killing 269 passengers. The second deadliest was the 1997 Korean Air B747-300 crash in Guam, which claimed 225 lives. The Jeju Air accident is the third deadliest aviation accident in South Korea's history.

Choi Sang-mok, Acting President and Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister of Strategy and Finance, declared Muan a special disaster zone and chaired a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters at Muan County Office. Acting President Choi stated, "The government designates a seven-day national mourning period from today until 24:00 on January 4.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.