A passenger plane crashed and burst into flames yesterday after it veered off a runway at a South Korean airport, killing at least 179 people.
The National Fire Agency said the fire was almost put out but officials were still trying to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the southern town of Muan.
The plane, a Boeing 737-800, was carrying 181 people, including crew members, when it crashed at Muan International Airport at around 9:30 a.m. local time. The cause of the crash is not yet known, but preliminary information suggests that the plane may have experienced a bird strike or a mechanical failure.
The crash is the deadliest plane crash in South Korea in over 20 years. The previous deadliest crash was in 1997, when a Korean Air Boeing 747 crashed in Guam, killing 228 people.
This crash comes at a time when the aviation industry is facing increasing scrutiny over its safety record.
On December 25, 2024, a plane crush occurred in Kazakhstan killing 38 people, including both pilots, and 29 survived with injuries. The plane, an Embraer 190 operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, was carrying 62 passengers and 5 crew members from Baku, Azerbaijan, headed for Grozny, Russia, when it crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan.
In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile plane crashes, including the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia in 2018 and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia in 2019.
These crashes have led to calls for strict regulations on the aviation industry and for airlines to invest more in safety.
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