DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
A plane crash at a South Korean airport has killed at least 179 people, one of the worst aviation disasters in the country's history. Two people were rescued from the crash. The plane had 181 people aboard. The tragic accident comes as the country is reeling from recent political chaos following the brief imposition of martial law this month and back-to-back impeachments of the country's two top leaders. NPR's Anthony Kuhn joins us from Seoul with more details. Hi, Anthony.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Hi, Daniel.
ESTRIN: What is known about how the crash happened?
KUHN: There are eyewitness videos which show the plane coming down the runway fast. Its landing gear is still up. It's sliding on its fuselage, and it's trailing sparks. Now, there's a South Korean aviation policy official named Yoo Kyung-soo, and he described the sequence of events this way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
YOO KYUNG-SOO: (Non-English language spoken).
KUHN: "At first, the plane attempted landing in one direction," he said, "but the control tower gave a bird strike warning." Shortly after that, the pilot signaled mayday. The control tower authorized the plane to land in the opposite direction rather than circling around, and the pilot complied. Then the plane landed, skidded off the airstrip, crashed into a concrete wall and burst into flames.
ESTRIN: What can you tell us about the flight and the passengers?
KUHN: Well, this was a Jeju air flight, who was coming from Bangkok, Thailand to Muan International Airport in South Chala province, which is about 180 miles south of Seoul, and local media report that there were 175 passengers and six crew aboard. Two were Thai nationals. The rest were South Koreans. There were several children under age 10. Some 1,500 first responders came to the scene. They put out the fire. They searched through the wreckage. The fuselage was shattered, and the aircraft's tail was about all that was left slightly intact, and reports say that the two survivors were crew members who were rescued from the tail.
ESTRIN: Now, you mentioned something about a bird strike. We heard that from the Aviation official. Did birds have anything to do with this crash?
KUHN: Well, it's still under investigation. The plight's (ph) - the plane's flight recorder has been recovered, and it's going to be analyzed. But even if there was a collision with birds, it's not clear how that could have disabled the landing gear and a lot of other things that malfunctioned. Now, Jeju Air is considered South Korea's leading low-cost carrier, and this is the first fatal accident they've suffered in nearly two decades of operation. The plane was a Boeing 737-800. Its landing gear and the plane have a good safety record. This particular Jeju airplane was 15 - Jeju airplane was 15 years old and had a clean record. So it's believed to be the worst accident for any South Korean airline since 1997.
ESTRIN: We also mentioned that the country has been going through quite a bit of turmoil recently. Did that affect the government's response to the accident?
KUHN: Well, South Korea's top two officials, the president and acting president, were both impeached. So it was the No. 3 official, Finance Minister and Acting President Choi Sang-mok, who mobilized government resources and declared a national period of mourning for the disaster. Two other officials with responsibility for this sort of thing, the interior minister and the national police minister, were both either resigned or arrested in connection with the martial law crisis. So there are concerns about whether all these government agencies with acting chiefs were able to coordinate properly. There were some complaints from the relatives of the bereaved that they didn't get enough information, but there's no information that they - that this was connected to the political chaos.
ESTRIN: NPR's Anthony Kuhn from Seoul. Thank you.
KUHN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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