The deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday, when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was attempting to land shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea's transport ministry said, Reuters reported.

Two crew members survived and were being treated for injuries.

The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was also the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to the transport ministry.

The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen in local media video skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into navigation equipment and a wall in an explosion of flames and debris.

"Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognise," Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a press briefing.

The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Lee said. They were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health centre.

Authorities combed nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee said.

Investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said. Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.

The crash was the worst for any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, according to transportation ministry data. The previous worst on South Korean soil was an Air China crash that killed 129 in 2002.

Experts said the bird strike report and the way the aircraft attempted to land raised more questions than answers.

"A bird strike is not unusual, problems with an undercarriage are not unusual," said Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas. "Bird strikes happen far more often, but typically they don't cause the loss of an airplane by themselves."

Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation into the crash and automatically involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was designed and built.

'MY LAST WORDS'

Hours after the crash, family members gathered in the airport's arrival area, some crying and hugging as Red Cross volunteers handed out blankets.

Many victims appeared to be residents of nearby areas returning from vacation, officials said.

Families screamed and wept as a medic announced the names of victims identified by their fingerprints. Papers were circulated for families to write down their contact details.

One relative stood at a microphone to ask for more information from authorities. "My older brother died and I don’t know what’s going on," he said. "I don’t know."

Another asked journalists not to film. "We are not monkeys in a zoo," he said. "We are the bereaved families."

Mortuary vehicles lined up outside to take bodies away, and authorities said a temporary morgue had been established.

The crash site smelled of aviation fuel and blood, according to Reuters witnesses. Workers in protective suits and masks combed the area while soldiers searched through bushes.

The control tower issued a bird strike warning and shortly afterward the pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said.

A passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing, the News1 agency reported. The person's final message was, "Should I say my last words?"

The aircraft was manufactured in 2009, the transport ministry said.

The two CFM56-7B26 engines were manufactured by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France's Safran, the transport ministry said.

A CFM spokesperson said, "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Jeju Air flight 2216. We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of those on board.”

CHALLENGE TO COUNTRY'S NEW INTERIM PRESIDENT

Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae apologised for the accident, bowing deeply during a televised briefing.

He said the aircraft had no record of accidents and there were no early signs of malfunction. The airline will cooperate with investigators and make supporting the bereaved its top priority, Kim said.

No abnormal conditions were reported when the aircraft left Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, said Kerati Kijmanawat, president of Airports of Thailand.

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

It was the first fatal flight for Jeju Air, a low-cost airline founded in 2005 that ranks behind only Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines in terms of the number of passengers in South Korea.

The accident happened only three weeks after Jeju Air started regular flights from Muan to Bangkok and other Asian cities on Dec. 8.

Muan International is one of South Korea's smallest airports but it has seen the number of international passengers jump nearly 20 times to 310,702 from January to November from the same period in 2022, according to government data.

The Boeing model involved in the crash, a 737-800, is one of the world’s most flown airliners with a generally strong safety record. It was developed well before the MAX variant involved in a recent Boeing safety crisis.

Boeing said in a emailed statement, "We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding flight 2216 and stand ready to support them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew."

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All domestic and international flights at Muan airport were cancelled, Yonhap reported.

South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok, named interim leader of the country on Friday in an ongoing political crisis, arrived at the scene of the accident and said the government was putting all its resources into dealing with the crash.

Two Thai women were on the plane, aged 22 and 45, Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said.

The Thai foreign ministry later confirmed both were among those killed. The embassy in Seoul was coordinating with the South Koreans and arranging for family members to travel from Thailand, the ministry said in a statement.

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sent condolences to the families of the dead and injured in a post on X, saying she had instructed the foreign ministry to provide assistance.

North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia's war against Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in Russia's Kursk region, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.

The number far exceeds the figure U.S. officials have previously provided, Reuters reported.

"It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses," Kirby said, describing the North Korean troops' offensive as "massed, dismounted assaults."

North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russia's U.N. mission declined to comment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said North Korean forces had sustained "very significant" losses and were being sent into battle with only minimal protection from the Russian forces.

"We see that neither the Russian military nor their North Korean overseers have any interest in ensuring the survival of these North Koreans," he said.

"Everything is set up so that it is impossible for us to capture them. There are instances in which they are executed by their own forces. Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection."

He said Ukrainian forces had managed to take a few North Korean soldiers prisoner "but they were severely wounded and it was not possible to save their lives."

Koreans should not be losing their lives in a war in Europe, he said, and if China was sincere in not wanting the war to expand, "it needs to exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang."

On Monday, Zelenskiy said more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded in Kursk region. He said he was citing preliminary data.

On Dec. 17, a U.S. military official said North Korea had suffered several hundred casualties in Kursk region.

Asked about what ranks the North Korean casualties included, the military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was from lower-level troops to "very near to the top."

In his comments, White House spokesperson Kirby said President Joe Biden would likely approve another security assistance package for Ukraine in coming days.

Earlier this week, Biden condemned Russia's Christmas Day attacks on Ukraine's energy system and some of its cities and asked the Defense Department to continue its surge of weapons to Ukraine.

Reuters was unable to independently verify reports of combat losses or accounts from either side.

Russian air defences downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people, Reuters reported citing four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation into the disaster.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.

The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia's southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.

It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia's aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea. The nearest Russian airport on the plane's flight path, Makhachkala, was closed on Wednesday morning.

One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system. Its communications were paralysed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny, the source said.

"No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft," the source said.

Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion. Russia's Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday there were early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the plane. Canada said it was deeply concerned by reports that Russian air defence may have struck the aircraft.

"We call on Russia to allow for an open and transparent investigation into the incident and to accept its findings," the Canadian foreign ministry said in a statement on X.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defences downed the plane.

Asked about the possibility that Russian air defences shot at the plane, the Kazakh transport prosecutor for the region where the plane came down said the investigation had yet to reach a firm conclusion.

The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defences, said it would be improper to comment until the inquiry was concluded.

"It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

WRECKAGE

Footage shot by passengers on the plane before it crashed showed oxygen masks down and people wearing life vests. Later footage showed bloodied and bruised passengers climbing out of the plane. There were 29 survivors.

Pictures of the plane wreckage showed what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the tail section of the plane.

Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the air space in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.

Ukrainian military drones have repeatedly targeted Russia's southern regions in recent months, triggering Russian air defences. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since Moscow's invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Defence Ministry had reported the downing of 59 Ukrainian drones over several regions.

Some were reportedly shot down in closed air space over regions bordering Ukraine, including the Sea of Azov. Flight operations were reportedly temporarily suspended at Russia’s Kazan Airport due to the activity.

In addition, publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the Azerbaijani aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, the alert said.

Russia uses advanced electronic jamming equipment to confuse Ukrainian drone location and communication systems and a large number of air defence systems have been deployed to shoot down the drones.