Jeju Air plane crash worst airline disaster on South Korean soil

Rescue workers take part in a salvage operation at the site where an aircraft crashed after it went off the runway at Muan International Airport. (Image: Reuters)

At least 174 people were killed in the deadliest airline crash ever in South Korea on Sunday. The airliner belly-landed and veered off the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was attempting to land shortly after 9 am. The Boeing 737-800 was seen in local media video skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into the wall in an explosion of flames and debris. The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, everyone else is presumed dead.

The crash of the Jeju Air flight marks the deadliest ever on South Korean soil. It is also the worst involving a South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air Lines crash in Guam that killed more than 200, according to a report by Reuters.

The crash at the Muan International Airport is also the first fatal accident involving the country's biggest budget airline, which was founded in 2005. Jeju Air ranks only behind Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines in terms of the number of passengers in South Korea.

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, Reuters reported.

- 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.

- July 1993: A Boeing 737-500 operated by Asiana Airline landed several kilometres (miles) short of the runway at South Korea's Mokpo airport in poor weather. More than 60 people died.

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- August 1997: Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-3B5B (747-300) operated by Korean Air, ploughed into a hill near Guam's international airport, killing 228 out of 254 persons on board.

- July 2011: An Asiana Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft crashed in the sea off South Korea's Jeju Island. This was later determined to have been caused by a fire in the cargo hold. Both pilots were killed.

- July 2013: Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed at the San Francisco airport when the Boeing 777 jetliner's tail struck a seawall short of the runway, sending the aircraft into a spin, leading to the deaths of three teenage passengers from China and injuries to more than 180 passengers out of about 300 people on board.