Plane In South Korea Bursts Into Flames After Skidding Off Runway, Killing At Least 96

Emergency officials in Muan said the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skid off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing at least 96 people, officials said, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The National Fire Agency said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry identified the plane as a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet and said the crash happened at 9:03 a.m. local time.

At least 96 people — 48 women and 47 men — died in the fire, the fire agency said. The gender of one dead person wasn’t immediately verified, it said. Emergency workers pulled out two people, both crew members, to safety, and local health officials said they remain conscious. The fire agency deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire, it said.

Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility. Other local TV stations aired footage showing thick pillows of black smoke billowing from the plane engulfed with flames.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that rescue workers are continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact. The plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage, he said.