What we know about the South Korea plane crash – and what could have gone wrong
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
Pic: AP/Ahn Young-joon
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.
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The Jeju Air plane, which was carrying 181 people, veered off the runway and into a wall before bursting into flames.
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?”
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A crash survivor is rushed to a hospital in Mokpo. Pic: Cho Geun-young/Yonhap/AP
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.”
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Ex-pilot ‘puzzled’ by South Korea crash
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.
Sally Gethin, aviation expert, speaking to Sky News
“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.
David Learmount, aviation expert, speaking to Sky News.
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
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
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Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.
At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.
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What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.
Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
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Trump signs coal orders
Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.
The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
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At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.
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