At least 85 dead after plane crash in South Korea VIDEO

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At least 85 people died in a plane crash in South Korea on Sunday, December 29, with most of the remaining passengers presumed dead, according to the fire department, reports CNN, which shows that two people survived.

The Jeju Air plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members when it made an emergency landing at Muan County Airport.

At least 85 people have been pronounced dead after a plane landed at South Korea’s Muan International Airport, with most of the remaining passengers and crew presumed dead, according to the South Jeolla Fire Department.

At least 28 people died in a plane crash that occurred at an airport in the southwest of the Republic of #Coreaaccording to the news agency #Yonhap and the local station YTN pic.twitter.com/3BKvEG5Iy7

— David de la Paz 戴维 (@daviddelapaz) December 29, 2024

Among the deceased people, 39 are men and 46 are women, the emergency services declared during a press conference on the spot.

The number of survivors remains at two. Both were crew members, a man and a woman, according to the rescue team.

The trip from Bangkok

The Jeju Air plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members when it made an emergency landing at Muan County Airport. The plane, listed as a Boeing 737-800 on FlightAware, was traveling from Bangkok, Thailand.

Two people were pulled out of the wreckage. Rescuers are concentrating on reaching the people in the back of the plane. A fire department official told CNN the plane was “almost completely destroyed” by the fire.

All flights arriving at South Korea’s Muan International Airport have been canceled following the forced landing of the Jeju Air flight, according to the Korea Airports Corporation.

South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, has instructed response teams to mobilize “all available equipment and personnel” to respond to the plane crash at Muan International Airport on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Security.

Investigators from South Korea’s Incident Investigation Committee arrived at the scene at 10:10 a.m. (8:10 p.m. ET) and are investigating the cause of the crash, according to the Interior Ministry.

The crash comes as South Korea’s government faces a full-blown political crisis.

The country’s current president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was stripped of his duties by parliament two weeks ago following a short-lived martial law that plunged the country into political disarray. He is currently suspended until a higher court decides his fate.

But the chaos at the top of the executive does not stop there. Han Duck-soo, who replaced Yoon as acting president, was impeached by parliament on Friday.

This means that Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok is now Acting President and faces a major air disaster just two days after assuming his new position.

This is the first fatal accident in the history of Jeju Air, one of the largest low-cost airlines in South Korea, established in 2005, it says hotnews. The accident on Sunday, December 29, is the worst involving a South Korean airline since the 1997 crash of a Korean Air plane that killed more than 200 people.