SEOUL, South Korea – Two people survived and 177 people were confirmed dead in a plane crash that occurred Sunday at an airport in South Korea, officials said. There were 181 passengers and crew on board, and two are still missing.
Jeju Air flight 2216 overshot the runway when it arrived at Muan International Airport in South Korea, and burst into flames after crashing, said a spokesman for the National Fire Agency.
The airport is about 180 kilometers south of Seoul.
The Boeing 787-800 took off from Bangkok, Thailand, shortly after 2 a.m. local time (2 p.m. Saturday ET), according to flight tracking platform FlightAware. It was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, said Joo Jong-wan, director of the Aviation Policy Division at South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
At least two of the passengers were Thai, Joo said.
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“The pilot declared May after issuing a bird strike warning,” Joo said, adding that the plane was “totally destroyed” in the crash.
The plane skidded off the runway and exploded as it climbed the barrier, video confirmed by NBC News showed. The tail of the plane, was the only part that appeared intact as flames engulfed the plane, sending black smoke into the air.
Joo provided an outline of the sequence of events leading up to the disaster.
The plane first attempted to land on Runway 1 of the airport. But the pilots were then ordered by the control tower to land on the other side, Runway 19, because of the bird strike warning, said Joo.
A minute later, the pilots sent a Mayday signal following the bird strike and attempted to land on Runway 19.
As it passed over the runway, the plane failed to lower its landing gear and hit a safety system called a localizer – which provides guidance during landing – and hit a wall, Joo said.
The accident occurred at around 09:03 am (7:03 pm ET Saturday), firefighters extinguished the fire at 9:46 am local time, said a spokesperson for the fire department.
The National Fire Agency later confirmed 177 deaths, making it the deadliest airline disaster of the year and the first fatal accident in the history of the low-cost airline, which was founded in 2005.
Of the dead, at least 77 were women and 79 were men. The gender of the other victims was not immediately known.
Two workers – a man and a woman – were rescued with minor injuries but were unconscious, Joo said. At first, the officials said that the rescued were passengers and crew.
The plane was “destroyed by fire,” Joo said at the briefing, adding that investigators have retrieved both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, which will be key to providing details on the final minutes of the fatal landing.
A full investigation, he said, could take between six months and three years.
The aircraft manufacturing company, Boeing, expressed its condolences to the families of the victims and said it was in contact with the airline. In a statement, Jeju Air expressed its apologies to “everyone affected” by the incident.
“Above all, we express our condolences and apologize to the passengers who lost their lives in the accident and to the bereaved families,” said Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae, taking “full responsibility for the tragedy” and adding that the airline would support the passengers’ families.
South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, called for immediate and comprehensive efforts to coordinate “firefighting and rescue,” the Interior and Security Ministry said in a statement.
The president’s office said in the minutes of the meeting that an emergency meeting was held regarding the accident.
In a statement, the Ministry of National Defense said it had called an emergency team and sent soldiers and equipment to the site to provide assistance.
Choi later arrived at the area and declared it a “special disaster area” while expressing his condolences to the victims and their families and said his government would “thoroughly investigate” what caused the accident.
Joo said more than 1,500 personnel from multiple agencies are conducting search and rescue efforts. The deceased was temporarily kept in a temporary cold storage set up at the airport, said Joo.
Stella Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea, and Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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