South Korean plane crash kills at least 80

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At least 80 people were killed on Sunday after a South Korean passenger jet crashed and burst into flame on landing, according to local authorities, in one of the country’s worst-ever aviation disasters.

The Jeju Air flight was returning from Bangkok with 181 people on board when it failed to deploy its landing gear at Muan International Airport in the south of the country.

Of the 175 passengers on board, 173 were South Korean, while the remaining two were Thai nationals, according to the transportation ministry. There were a further six crew members on board.

Local television news footage showed the aircraft skidding down the runway before it struck a wall and was engulfed in flames. The plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned, according to the country’s emergency office.

The fire has been contained and two people were rescued from the wreckage, according to state-run Yonhap News. More than 30 trucks and several helicopters were deployed to the disaster.

South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok visited the scene on Sunday and ordered an all-out rescue effort, beseeching emergency workers to “do your utmost for rescue operations, mobilising all available resources”.

Authorities are still working to determine the exact cause of the crash, an airline spokesperson said.

TV footage showed thick smoke billowing from the wreckage of the aircraft, a twin-engined Boeing 737-800 jet, after the crash.

Fire officials told Yonhap that most of the passengers were feared dead. In a televised briefing, officials pointed to the plane hitting birds and bad weather as possible causes of the accident.

The disaster was the second fatal plane accident in recent days. An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger flight crash-landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, after being diverted over the Caspian Sea from Grozny, in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya.

US and Ukrainian officials have blamed Russian anti-aircraft fire for the accident, in which 38 of the 67 people on board were killed. Russian authorities said heavy fog and a flock of birds caused the diversion from Grozny, but have also said that it occurred while Ukrainian combat drones were attacking nearby cities.

Russian Vladimir Putin apologised to Azerbaijan on Saturday for the “tragic incident”, but did not comment on the allegations of Russian interference.