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BREAKING: Plane Crashes in South Korea — 180 On Board, At Least 85 Confirmed Dead

Tragedy struck in South Korea Saturday evening (Sunday morning in Korea) when a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed at Muan International Airport.

There were 180 souls on board.

The death toll is currently at 85 and rising, with only 2 confirmed survivors.

The plane was a Boeing 737-800.

Here’s what we know so far:

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From CNN:

Dozens of people were killed on Sunday when a passenger jet crash-landed at an airport in southwestern South Korea, with the aircraft careening down the runway on its belly before bursting into flames.

At least 85 people have been confirmed dead so far, according to the local fire department. Two people, both crew members, were pulled alive from the crash site however rescuers have warned there is little hope of finding further survivors.

Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 from Bangkok was carrying 175 passengers and six crew when disaster struck at the airport in Muan county, just after 9 a.m. local time Sunday (7 p.m. ET Saturday). The accident was caused by a landing gear malfunction, officials said.

Footage of Sunday’s crash broadcast by multiple South Korean news outlets showed the plane sliding on its belly at high speed, hitting an earthen embankment and erupting in a fireball.

Neither the back nor front landing gear was visible in the footage – broadcast by networks including YTN, JTBC and MBC – as smoke poured from the back of the sliding aircraft.

Firefighters were later seen using water cannons to extinguish the blazing wreckage of the aircraft, which was listed as a Boeing 737-800 on flight-tracking site FlightAware. Several parts of the aircraft were also seen strewn across the runway.

The victims include 39 males and 46 females, according to the South Jeolla Fire Service. Both of the survivors were crew members, one male and one female, according to the rescue team.

Two Thai nationals were among those on board, according to the South Korean Land Ministry, which said officers from the national Incident Investigation Committee arrived on site at 10:10 a.m. (8.10 p.m. EST Saturday) to look into the cause of the accident.

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ABC News has more details:

At least 85 people are dead after a passenger jet crashed upon landing at an airport in South Korea on Sunday morning, authorities said.

Jeju Air Flight 2216 was landing at Muan International Airport around 9 a.m. local time when the plane went off the runway and crashed into a wall.

The updated death toll was provided by the National Fire Agency. The official death toll has steadily climbed in the hours after the crash. There were a total of 175 passengers and six crew members aboard the Boeing 737 aircraft, which had taken off from Bangkok, according to the Korean Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport.

It’s unclear how many people are unaccounted for.

Video from the scene at the time of the crash appears to show the landing gear was up when the plane touched down, indicating some sort of malfunction, and it also appears the plane landed at a high speed.

The transport ministry was on the scene investigating the cause of the crash.

Two people were rescued from the wreckage of the plane and taken to the hospital, according to the transport ministry. Their condition is not known.

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Please pray for the victims and their families.


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