By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger plane skidded off the runway of a South Korean airport on Sunday, crashed into a concrete fence and burst into flames after its front landing gear apparently failed to extend. All but two of the 181 people on board died in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The Jeju Air plane crashed while landing in the city of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transportation Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that arrived from Bangkok and that the crash occurred at 9:03 a.m

According to the South Korean fire department, a total of 179 people died – 85 women, 84 men and 10 others whose gender was not immediately identified. Rescue workers brought two people, both crew members, to safety. Health authorities said they were conscious and not in life-threatening condition.

The fire department said officials have identified 88 of the 177 bodies found so far. The passengers were mostly South Koreans and two Thai nationals. Thailand’s foreign ministry said its embassy in Seoul had received confirmation from South Korean authorities that the two Thai passengers were among those killed.

The fire department used 32 fire engines and several helicopters to contain the fire. According to the fire department and the Ministry of Transport, about 1,570 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the scene.

Footage of the crash broadcast by South Korean television channels showed the plane skidding down the runway at high speed, apparently with the landing gear still closed, overrunning the runway and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the edge of the facility, triggering an alarm explosion. Other local television stations broadcast footage showing thick clouds of black smoke rising from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, head of the Muan Fire Station, said at a televised news conference that the plane was completely destroyed and only the tail was visible among the rubble. Lee said workers were considering several possibilities as to what caused the crash, including whether the plane was struck by birds, Lee said.

Transportation Department officials later said their initial analysis of communications records showed that the airport’s control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it was scheduled to land and gave its pilot permission to land in a different area. The pilot sent a distress signal just before the plane overshot the end of the runway and skidded over a buffer zone before hitting the wall, officials said.

Senior Transportation Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said workers had recovered the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the plane’s black box, which are being examined by government experts probing the cause of the crash and fire. He said it could take investigators months to complete their investigation. The runway at Muan Airport will be closed until January 1, the ministry said.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra expressed his gratitude to the families of the victims of the accident in a post on the social platform

Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of Thailand’s airports, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air Flight 7C 2216 took off from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of abnormal conditions on the aircraft or on the runway.

Jeju Air expressed its “deep apologies” for the crash in a statement and said it would “do its utmost to deal with the consequences of the accident.”

In a televised news conference, Jeju Air President Kim E-bae, along with other senior company officials, bowed deeply as he apologized to the bereaved and said he felt “fully responsible” for the incident. Kim said the company had found no mechanical problems with the plane after regular checks and that he would await the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.

Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some of the victims in a lounge at Muan airport.

Boeing said in a statement on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and stood ready to help the company deal with the crash.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones and our thoughts are with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.

The incident came as South Korea was embroiled in a huge political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s surprise declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached incumbent President Han Duck-soo and suspended him from office, leading to Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok taking over.

Choi, who traveled to the site in Muan, urged officials to use all available resources to find the missing people and identify the victims as quickly as possible. The government declared Muan a special disaster area to provide assistance to victims’ families and imposed a week-long national mourning period until Saturday.

Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, chaired an emergency meeting of senior presidential aides to discuss the crash and provided the details to Choi. Yoon expressed his condolences to the victims in a Facebook post.

The Muan crash is one of the deadliest disasters in South Korean aviation history. The last time South Korea experienced a major aviation disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco, killing three people and injuring about 200.

Sunday’s accident was also one of the worst landing disasters, according to data, since the July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 skidded off a slippery runway in Sao Paulo, killing one nearby building collided by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving aviation safety. According to the safety foundation, 158 people died in 2010 when an Air India Express plane overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plunged into a ravine before bursting into flames. World leaders expressed their condolences as South Korea copes with the tragedy.

During his Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Francis said he joined in “prayer for the survivors and the dead.” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he was “deeply saddened by the loss of many precious lives” in a statement released by Tokyo’s Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on

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Associated Press writers Bobby Caina Calvan in New York, Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul and Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

Originally published: December 28, 2024 at 4:56 pm PST