South Korea in mourning after plane crash kills all but two onboard
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Flight data and cockpit voice recorders recovered from wreckage of Jeju Air flight 2216 at Muan airport. Distraught family members gathered at Muan international airport in South Korea on Sunday after a plane carrying 181 people from Bangkok crashed, killing all but two people onboard, in the country’s worst domestic civil aviation disaster.
![[People grieving at the airport]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f8f2b80642d0e82aec4db3d6adac20757dd2b5a4/212_128_3912_2346/master/3912.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Officials said all 175 passengers and four of the six crew members were killed when the Boeing 737-800 attempted an emergency landing, smashed into a wall and burst into flames at 9am local time at the airport, about 185 miles south-west of Seoul. Two flight attendants who survived are being treated in hospital. One was in an intensive care unit with fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, the director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul hospital. The man told doctors he “woke up to find [himself] rescued”.
![[Choi Sang-mok with firefighters at the crash scene]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3d0705a24093ff7364439a2d1cd8ec85d2275165/0_0_5820_3492/master/5820.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
A stench of gasoline hung over the airport on Sunday night and scattered plane seats, suitcases and twisted bits of metal were visible close to the wrecked fuselage of Jeju Air flight 2216, which had been carrying mainly Korean passengers returning from winter holidays, as well as two Thai passengers.
Footage of the crash showed the aircraft skidding along the runway and veering off across a buffer zone before striking a concrete barrier at high speed and bursting into flames as parts of the fuselage flew into the air. A local fire official said the crash could have been caused by a bird strike and weather conditions, but the exact cause was not yet known.
