177 Dead In South Korea’s Worst-Ever Aviation Disaster

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.

Update (Sunday):

The death toll rose to 177, leaving just two of the 181 souls on board the Boeing 737-800 jetliner unaccounted for, according to The Guardian.

Two crew members—one male and one female—survived and are currently hospitalized. The two survivors were found in the aircraft’s tail section, the only part of the plane that retained some of its shape after the high-speed runway crash.

Jeju Air Flight 2216 from Bangkok to Muan, South Korea, crashed and caught fire after a ‘bird strike’ reportedly caused a landing gear malfunction, forcing the pilots to land the jet on its belly. However, the pilots could not burn off enough airspeed during the landing approach and flaring process during the landing, resulting in the aircraft crashing into a berm at the end of the runway.

One X user asked: “I’m puzzled as to why the pilots of Jeju Air Flight 2216 didn’t use the landing gear manual extension. It’s incredibly strange that both hydraulic systems A & B failed simultaneously, leading to an attempt to land on a short runway without gear or flaps. This decision seems like madness.”

This aviation disaster is shaping up to be one of the country’s worst, surpassing the Korean Airlines Boeing 747 crash in the Guam jungle in 1997, which claimed 228 lives. The investigation into Sunday’s crash could take years to complete.

Terrible week for air travel.

Flight 2216 is expected to overshadow the political and economic turmoil in South Korea’s news cycle for the foreseeable future.

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At least 85 people were killed when a Jeju Airlines airplane veered off the runway and erupted into a fireball as it slammed into a concrete wall at South Korea’s Muan International Airport on Sunday, Yonhap reported after its landing gear malfunctioned following what aviation authorities say was a likely bird strike.

Video shared by local media showed the twin-engine aircraft skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in an explosion of flame and debris. Other photos showed smoke and fire engulfing parts of the plane.

The crash occurred shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) as Jeju Air flight 7C2216, yet another unfortunate Boeing 737 aircraft (an 800, not a Max), was carrying 175 passengers and 6 crew members to Muan International Airport, in the country’s south from the Thai capital Bangkok.

At least 33 bodies have been recovered but that number is not final, a fire official told Reuters.

Two people were found alive and rescue operations were still underway, a Muan fire official said. The official and the transport ministry could not confirm the reports of 28 dead. Yonhap said three people had been rescued. Authorities were working to rescue people in the tail section, an airport official told Reuters.

The passengers included two Thai nationals, and the rest are believed to be South Koreans, according to the transportation ministry.

Jeju Air, the airplane’s operator, was seeking details of the accident, including its casualties and cause, an airline spokesperson said.

South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, who was named interim leader of the country on Friday after the previous acting president was impeached amid an ongoing political crisis, ordered all-out rescue efforts, his office said. His chief of staff convened an emergency meeting.

The incident is suspected to have been caused by a landing gear malfunction following a bird strike, according to the local fire department.