Firefighters have confirmed that the final balance of the accident suffered this Sunday by flight 7C2216 of the South Korean Jeju Air, which exploded after leaving the track and hitting a wall at Muan airport (290 kilometers southwest of Seoul), it is 179 dead and only two survivors.
“After The plane crashed into the wall, the passengers were ejected from the plane.. The chances of survival are extremely low,” explained a Fire Department official after one of the updates to the official balance sheets that have been released throughout the day.
Most of the dead were in the back of the plane.in which the bulk of the passengers – except for two Thais – were of Korean nationality. Two people have been rescued – a passenger and a crew member.
How the accident occurred
The accident occurred around 9:07 a.m. this Sunday during a landing maneuver of a Jeju Air flight from Bangkok carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, according to Police and Firefighters sources.
Possible landing gear failure
The South Korean Ministry of Transportation has reported that The plane crew warned, five minutes before the accident, of a collision with a flock of birds which caused damage to the device, unable to open its landing gear. The aircraft touched down on its belly at around 09:03 local time and left the runway until crashing into the outer wall in a fireball extinguished by firefighters 43 minutes later, with the plane already practically destroyed.
The pilot would have attempted a forced landing without success and, having failed to reduce the speed of the plane before reaching the end of the runwaycrashed into the structures on the outer edge of the airport, starting a fire.
In the absence of a confirmed explanation, The country’s authorities have launched an investigation on the ground to clarify the exact causes of the incident, of which until now no further details have emerged.
Along the same lines, the country’s acting president, Choi Sang Mok, who traveled to the site of the accident after ordering the authorities to make “all possible efforts” in the rescue operations and has promised that “The Government will not skimp to support grieving families”.
For his part, the CEO of the airline Jeju Air, Kim E-bae, has issued a public apology and conveyed his condolences to the families and friends of the deceasedassuming “full responsibility as CEO, regardless of the cause.”
The plane in question was a Boeing 737-800 that had departed Bangkok at 01:30 a.m. with a total of 181 people – including crew members – and was scheduled to arrive in Muan around 08:30 a.m.
