World's deadliest air crash disasters
The deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday, when Jeju Air flight 7C2216 erupted in a fireball while landing at Muan International Airport.
Image: Graphic News
The crash of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft is the country’s worst aviation disaster in decades.
“Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest (of the aircraft) looks almost impossible to recognise,” Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a press conference.
Two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Lee said.
Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.
South Korea’s Transport Ministry announced Monday that it plans to conduct safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800 jetliners operated by the country’s airlines.
The Muan crash is South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster since 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 229 of the 254 people aboard.
Graphic News