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What to Know About South Korea’s Worst Plane Crash in Decades
A plane carrying 181 people crashed while landing, killing most on board. Officials were investigating a possible malfunction with the landing gear and a bird strike.
Choe Sang-HunJin Yu Young and Yan Zhuang
Reporting from Seoul
A passenger plane carrying 181 people crash-landed on its belly on Sunday at an airport in South Korea, hitting a barrier and exploding into an orange fireball in the worst aviation disaster in the country in almost three decades.
All but two of the people on board the plane, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, were killed.
The plane, Flight 7C2216, had taken off from Bangkok and was landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea’s southwest when it crashed around 9 a.m. local time. Officials said the plane had broken into so many pieces that only its tail was identifiable.
The plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members. The two who survived were crew members who were rescued from the aircraft’s tail section.
What caused the crash?
Crashes are often caused by multiple factors, which can take years to uncover through in-depth investigations. Officials were looking into why the landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.
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