Death toll rises to 85 after plane crashes at South Korean airport

The death toll from a jet accident at Muan International Airport in South Korea has grown to 85, with the majority of the remaining passengers and crew assumed dead, according to the South Jeolla Fire Service.

At least 85 people were killed when a commercial airliner crashed Sunday at a South Korean airport owing to an apparent bird attack, poor weather, and a landing gear problem, according to officials.

The jet was supposed to arrive at Muan International Airport at 8:30 a.m., but it had to abort because it couldn't lower its landing gear, Yonhap said, citing anonymous airport sources. The landing gear problem was suspected to be caused by a bird hit, according to the report, which did not cite sources.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, a fire department officer in charge of search and rescue operations at the area, was pessimistic that officials would uncover additional survivors. The jet was so extensively damaged, shattering into several pieces, that just the tail part was identifiable, he informed reporters.

The number of survivors stays at two. The rescue team identified both as crew members, one male and one female.

The Jeju Air airplane swerved off the runway while landing at Muan International Airport, catching fire after the disaster, according to a spokeswoman for the National Fire Agency.

The crash is "perplexing" considering the Boeing 737-800's good safety record and "virtually perfect" conditions, according to analysts.

The Boeing 737-800 is one of the world's most commonly utilized aircraft, with each flying four or five times a day, according to Geoffrey Thomas, editor of Airline News.

It is the world's most dependable airplane, having been in service for 20 years. Everybody understands how it works. And it works really well. And the maintenance done in [South] Korea is of the highest quality available anywhere.

South Korean fire authorities believe there was a landing gear problem, and film shows the aircraft sliding on its belly.

“It’s it’s a little bit unclear whether or not the undercarriage collapsed on landing or whether the undercarriage was not deployed at all. This is a really serious issue that obviously investigators will be very much focused on,” Thomas said.

He noted, "it is perplexing" that the Jeju Air jet crashed after landing in dry and bright weather at an excellent airport.

“Everything’s right but everything went wrong. Why? How can that possibly happen – that everything goes wrong in virtually perfect conditions?”

“This is an extraordinary tragedy that’s obviously going to claim many, many lives. And, it’s a miracle that anybody has actually survived this terrible inferno and crash,” he added.

Choi Sang-mok, South Korea's acting president, has asked for urgent and full mobilization measures "to put out the fire and rescue people," according to a statement from the Ministry of Interior and Safety.

Choi subsequently arrived at the scene and was scheduled to chair a meeting to monitor response activities, according to Park Sang-woo, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.

After recovering the remaining fatalities, rescue teams will look for the black box flight data recorders from the Jeju Air flight that crashed at Muan International Airport on Sunday, according to a Transport Ministry briefing.

The ministry noted that around 700 police, military, and coast guard personnel had been activated for on-site response actions.

According to Muan Fire Department officials, rescuers are attempting to identify the individuals and document the exact sites of their deaths.

The deceased will be transported to an airport morgue and released for burial once the identification procedure is completed.