More than 170 people have died after a year Plane crashed while landing in South Korea on Sunday morning.

The Jeju Air plane skidded off the runway before colliding with a wall at Muan International Airport in the southwest of the country.

The plane, which was returning from Bangkok in Thailand, was carrying 181 people – 179 of whom died, while two crew members were rescued from the rubble.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, which fire officials said may have been caused by a bird strike and bad weather.

Flight 7C2216 was a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, Korea’s most popular low-cost airline.

The aircraft arrived in Muan at around 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT).

A South Korean transport official said the plane attempted to land but had to abort after air traffic control issued a bird strike warning – a warning about the risk of a collision with birds.

About two minutes later, the pilot called an emergency call and air traffic control cleared the plane to land from the opposite direction, the official said.

A passenger on the flight told a relative that a bird was “stuck in the wing” and the plane was unable to land, local media reported.

A video appears to show the plane touching down without using its wheels or other landing gear. It slid down the runway and crashed into a wall before bursting into flames.

A witness told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency they heard a “loud bang” followed by a “series of explosions.”

Videos from the scene show the plane engulfed in flames and smoke billowing into the sky. Firefighters have now extinguished the fire.

Muan Fire Department chief Lee Jeong-hyun said in a televised news conference that the tail section of the plane was visible but “the shape of the rest of the plane was not recognizable.”

He said the bird strike and bad weather could have caused the crash – but the exact cause was still under investigation. The aircraft’s flight and voice recorders were recovered.

Jeju Air’s chief executive said the crash was not due to “any maintenance issues,” Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea’s transportation agency said the flight’s chief pilot had held the role since 2019 and had more than 6,800 hours of flight experience.

A bird strike is a collision between a flying aircraft and a bird. They are very common – more than 1,400 bird strikes were reported in the UK in 2022, of which only around 100 involved aircraft Civil Aviation Authority data.

The most famous bird strike occurred in 2009, when a Airbus plane crashed into New York’s Hudson River after a collision 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 it was revealed that Boeing aircraft have turbofan engines that can be seriously damaged in a bird strike.

He said pilots are trained to be especially vigilant in the early morning or at sunset, when birds are most active.

The aircraft was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members. Two of the passengers were Thai and the rest were believed to be South Korean, authorities said. Many are believed to have returned from a Christmas holiday in Thailand.

The official death toll is 179, making it the deadliest plane crash in South Korean history.

All passengers and four crew members were killed.

So far, authorities have identified at least 88 bodies.

Five of those who died were children under the age of ten. The youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78, authorities said, citing the passenger manifest.

According to South Korea’s National Fire Service, two members of the flight crew – a man and a woman – survived the crash. They were found in the tail of the plane after the crash and taken to hospital, it said.

More than 1,500 emergency personnel were deployed as part of the rescue effort, including 490 firefighters and 455 police officers. They searched the area around the runway for parts of the plane and its passengers.

Acting President Choi Sang-mok has declared a special disaster area in Muan, providing central government resources to the local government and victims.

All flights to and from Muan International Airport have been canceled.

Families of the crash victims have traveled to the airport hoping to find out what happened to their loved ones. Video footage obtained by Reuters shows officers reading the victims’ names aloud.

Airport authorities and the Red Cross have set up more than a dozen tents in the airport where grieving families can grieve privately.

Crying sounds echoed through the terminal. Some are frustrated by how long it is taking to identify the bodies.

Jeju Air apologized to the families. The CEO said in a press conference that the airline had not had any accidents in the past. Sunday’s crash is believed to be the only fatal accident since the airline was founded in 2005.

The aircraft manufacturer Boeing has expressed its condolences to those affected.

Choi, the acting president of South Korea, said: “I extend my deepest condolences to the many victims of the incident. I will do everything I can to ensure that the injured recover quickly.”

The government has declared a national period of mourning for the country for the next seven days, during which flags at government offices will be lowered.