Flight JJA-2216 crashed at 09:03 local time (00:03 GMT) on Sunday. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-8AS, was carrying 181 people, including six crew members, from the Thai capital Bangkok to Muan, some 290 kilometers south of Seoul.
“As of 5:26pm (local time), authorities had confirmed 174 fatalities in the crash. Firefighting forces are continuing remains’ recovery operations,” Yonhap reports.
Firefighters had previously reported that the two survivors extracted from the wreckage were crew members.
They were initially treated in separate hospitals in Mokpo before being transferred to Seoul, according to Yonhap. Their injuries are not life-threatening.
“The cause of the accident is possibly due to be a bird strike combined with unfavorable weather conditions. However, the exact cause will be announced after an investigation,” Muan Fire Chief Lee Jeong-hyun said at a press briefing.
“The passengers were ejected from the plane when it collided with a barrier, leaving them with little chance of survival,” a local fire official stated at a meeting with the victims’ families.
“The plane has almost completely been destroyed, and it is difficult to identify the deceased”, he added.
A video broadcast by local TV station MBC shows the plane landing with smoke billowing from the engines, before hitting a wall at the end of the runway and being engulfed in flames.
Images broadcast by Korean TV channels showed numerous emergency service vehicles and dozens of firefighters working around the charred wreckage of the plane, all but the tail, evacuating bodies wrapped in blue shrouds on stretchers.
The passengers on board were all Korean nationals, except for two Thai nationals, according to local authorities.
This air accident is the deadliest in the country’s history and marks the first fatal incident for Jeju Air, one of Korea’s leading low-cost airlines, founded in 2005.
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