World

What we know about the South Korea plane crash – and what could have gone wrong

Published

7 months ago

December 29, 2024

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A plane carrying 181 people has crashed in South Korea, killing all but two people on board.

It’s the country’s worst domestic civil aviation disaster, and a special disaster zone has been declared.

Here’s everything we know.

Follow latest: South Korea plane crash

What happened?

Around midnight UK time (9am Sunday local time) a Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people attempted to crash-land at Muan International Airport, about 180 miles south of Seoul.

On its second attempt, it veered off the runway and crashed into a wall, quickly becoming engulfed in smoke and fire.

It did not have its landing gear deployed and was travelling at speed before crashing, footage appears to show.

What caused the crash?

A bird strike is one of the potential causes being considered by officials.

South Korea’s transport ministry said the plane was sent a warning about a bird strike from the control tower before the fatal crash.

The pilot sent out a distress signal shortly before the accident. They had been given permission to land in a different area than usual.

The News1 agency reported that a passenger texted a relative to say a bird was stuck in the wing of the plane.

Their final message was said to have been: “Should I say my last words?”

Witnesses on the ground reported hearing a “loud explosion” and seeing sparks in the plane’s engine before it crashed.

Officials are also looking at the weather conditions at the time of the crash.

As footage shows the landing gear was not deployed when the plane was attempting to crash land, a landing gear failure is also likely to be investigated.

The plane’s black box and cockpit voice recording device have been retrieved, but decrypting them could take more than a month, officials have said.

What have experts said?

Former pilot Terry Tozer told Sky News that even in the event of a bird strike and the loss of one engine, the pilots should have still been able to control the plane.

“They fly on one [engine] quite well,” he said.

“The regulations require a passenger aircraft to sustain an engine failure at the most critical point of take-off and still continue the take-off on the remaining engine.

“So to be already airborne on one engine, and I’ve done it, and we’ve all done it in the simulator, it really is not a major problem. The problem tends to occur if the crew has lots of other problems and they become overloaded.”

He added: “The flight data recorder will show what systems were operating, what the crew did, what they selected.

“Normally with an engine failure, you would expect to go into the hold perhaps, go through an emergency checklist, and figure out what you can do and what your options are.

“I’m still very puzzled by the fact that this aircraft is shown on the runway at high speed and without the undercarriage. I can’t think why that would be.

“It looks to me that there was an event that created problems for the crew, that, for whatever reason, they were unable to deal with.”

Aviation expert Sally Gethin told Sky News the pilots could have been left with a “split-second decision” in the event of a bird strike.

“Obviously the worst case scenario with a bird strike, which is ingrained into all airport safety procedures around the world, is being ingested into the engine,” she said.

“It’s a known, potentially catastrophic, factor in air travel.

“If indeed it was a bird strike, it possibly impacted one engine, but possibly knocked out hydraulics, which in turn would have impacted the use of the landing gear.

“The pilots would have had to make very split-second decisions on what their options would be in a case like that.

“They would have decided they didn’t have enough time to divert to another aerodrome, and so they took the decision to land at that particular one.

“Then, of course, they ran out of runway and hit a buffer wall right at the end, which caused the actual eruption.”

Why was there a wall at the end of the runway?

The plane exploded seemingly while colliding with a solid wall at the end of the runway, and experts have questioned why it was there.

Aviation expert David Learmount said all of the passengers would have survived without the concrete wall.

He said: “When you saw it slide off the end of the runway, nothing was on fire. The aircraft was completely under control.

“The actual touchdown itself, the aircraft was perfectly wings level. The aircraft had been handled very, very nicely.”

“The aeroplane was fine up until the point it hit the wall. If there had been no wall there, everybody would be alive now.”

What do we know about the flight?

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, a Boeing 737-800 jet, was on its way back from Bangkok, Thailand, at the time of the crash.

There were 173 South Koreans and two Thai people on board as well as six crew members, according to local media.

The plane followed a flight path northeast over Taiwan, according to tracking data from Flight Radar.

South Korea’s transport ministry said the plane was manufactured in 2009.

Jeju Air said the plane had no previous record of accidents, and that there were no early signs of the plane malfunctioning.

What is Jeju Air and what is its safety record like?

Jeju Air is South Korea’s largest low-cost airline, carrying more than 12.3 million passengers last year.

Formed in 2005, the company is named after Jeju Island – located to the south of the Korean Peninsula – which is home to the airline’s headquarters.

The company has more than 3,000 employees and more than 40 aircraft, most of them Boeing 737-800s – a model widely used around the world.

South Korea is well-regarded in safety terms, and is rated Category 1 in the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) International Aviation Safety Assessment Program.

Jeju Air received a safety grade of “A” – “very good” – in the latest South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s annual review of domestic airlines, according to the New York Times.

A history of the Boeing 737-800

The plane was launched in 1994 by US company Boeing to replace its older 737 models, and it competes with the Airbus A320. It was used in a commercial flight for the first time since 1997.

Nearly 5,000 have been sold worldwide since the launch of the 737-800, with Ryanair, United Airlines and American Airlines among the largest operators of the planes.

Often described as the “workhorse” of major commercial airlines due to its widespread use, the aircraft has a strong safety record.

While Boeing 737-800s have been involved in previous fatal crashes, most have been put down to poor weather conditions, human error, or other factors.

The last fatal crash involving a 737-800 was China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 in March 2022, when a plane crashed in Wuzhou, China, after descending steeply mid-flight.

The crash is still under investigation by China’s civil aviation authority, though multiple reports have suggested the plane was deliberately crashed.

Other previous fatal crashes include in March 2016, when a Flydubai flight landing at Rostov-on-Don, Russia, crashed on the final approach in inclement weather, killing all 62 people on board.

More than 150 people were also killed in an Air India Express flight in May 2010, when a 737-800 overran the runway at Mangalore airport.

A report later found that the plane’s captain had continued an unstabilised approach, despite three calls from the first officer to initiate a “go-around”.

World

Israel allows foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza

Published

24 mins ago

July 25, 2025

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Israel allows foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza

Israel has said foreign countries can drop aid into Gaza from today.

A senior IDF official told Sky News on Friday: “Starting today, Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza.

“Starting this afternoon, the WCK organisation began reactivating its kitchens.”

Humanitarian aid organisation World Central Kitchen paused its operation in Gaza in November after a number of its workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.

Aid workers in Gaza – who help provide food, medicine and shelter for the millions displaced there – have been affected by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In recent weeks hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food and aid.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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World

‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points

Published

14 hours ago

July 24, 2025

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'Almost like a game of target practice': British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points

A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.

Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.

The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.

Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.

“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”

In other developments:

• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks

• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”

• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine

• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same

‘They were shells’

Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.

The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.

“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.

Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.

“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.

“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”

IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’

Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.

He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.

“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”

Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.

“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.

“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.

“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.

“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”

Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.

It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.

More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.

UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.

Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”

Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.

Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.

World

Eleven civilians killed as Thailand and Cambodia exchange fire in escalating border dispute

Published

18 hours ago

July 24, 2025

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Eleven civilians killed as Thailand and Cambodia exchange fire in escalating border dispute

Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.

Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.

It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.

Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.

Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.

Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.

Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.

“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.

Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.

What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?

‘Civilian areas targeted’

Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.

“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.

A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.

The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.

‘Conflict not spreading’

Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.

Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.

He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.

Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.

The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.

A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.

Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.

Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.

Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.