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4 days ago
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“A bird is stuck in the wing. We can’t land,” one passenger on board the ill-fated Jeju Air flight 7C2216 sent out in a panicked text just before 9am on Sunday morning. “Should I write my final words?”
Minutes later, the Boeing 737-800 carrying 181 people veered off the runway and burst into flames, resulting in South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster.
The flight from Bangkok, full of holidaymakers on a Christmas package tour, had been routine until 8.57am, when air traffic controllers at Muan international airport, in the south-west of the country, spotted something concerning and radioed a bird strike warning to the cockpit. Seconds later, the pilots declared “mayday, mayday, mayday”.
A man fishing on a nearby beach witnessed the aircraft’s final moments. He reported seeing a flock of birds collide with the plane’s right-side engine, followed by two or three loud “bangs” and then flames.
At 9.03am, with its landing gear failing to deploy, the aircraft skidded along the runway before crashing into a navigation aid structure made of concrete and a perimeter wall in an explosion of flames and debris. The official cause of the accident has yet to be determined.
Within 13 minutes, authorities had declared a level 3 emergency, mobilising 80 firefighters, 32 fire engines, and rescue teams from across the region. For 43 agonising minutes, firefighters battled the inferno before the flames were contained at 9.46am.
In the terminal, families who had gathered for joyful reunions watched in horror as news footage showed their loved ones’ aircraft swallowed by flames. Among them was Suthinee, waiting to collect her daughter, 22-year-old Sirithon Cha-ue.
The young Thai woman, known as Mei to her family, had won a scholarship to study airline business management and dreamed of becoming a flight attendant. This was only her second visit to see her mother, who had lived in South Korea for a decade.
Her uncle, Thiraphat Cha-ue, recalled how she had been the pride of their family in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province.
“There were only three months left before she graduated,” he said, adding the family had been discussing attending her upcoming graduation ceremony in Bangkok.
At 12.55pm, South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, arrived at the airport, where he was immediately surrounded by desperate families demanding answers.
“Tell us the situation in real time,” they pleaded. “Think of the families first.” Choi could only bow his head in response, promising that “no effort would be spared” in supporting the bereaved.
When the Muan fire chief, Lee Jeong-hyun, delivered the devastating news that “most of the 181 passengers are presumed dead”, the briefing room erupted in wails of grief.
“Is there absolutely no chance of survival?” one family member asked. Lee could only bow his head and respond: “I’m so sorry, but that’s what it’s looking like.” Some collapsed to the ground, others repeatedly cried out: “How could this happen?”
One woman raised her hand, pleading through tears: “Let us go to the crash site. Family members can find their loved ones faster.”
As the day wore on, the death toll mounted in brutal increments: 28, then 47, then 62. By evening, officials confirmed 179 deaths, with only two crew members found in the tail section surviving. The victims were aged from three to 78.
“Through collision twice and explosion, most of the passengers were thrown off the plane”, said Yeom Dong-bu, a Muan firefighter at the scene. “I used to work on ambulances so I’ve seen this kind of terrible stuff like car crashes, but not on this scale.”
For Jeon Je-young, 71, whose daughter Mi-sook was on board, the tragedy was incomprehensible. “When I saw the accident video, the plane seemed out of control,” he said, still watching the footage of the aircraft’s final moments.
His daughter, in her mid-40s, had brought him food and next year’s calendar just days earlier. “She is much nicer than my son, sometimes asking me to go out for a meal,” he recalled, showing their final text exchanges on his mobile phone.
A temporary mortuary was established at the airport, where 169 forensic officers and 579 police officers worked to identify victims. Military personnel joined the grim task of searching the wreckage, much of which was burnt beyond recognition.
As evening fell, a man in his 60s kept returning to the family support desk, his son by his side. His wife had been travelling with her sisters-in-law on the flight.
While the sisters-in-law’s bodies had been identified, his wife’s name was still not on the list. Again and again, they checked the registry of names, his son repeatedly collapsing in tears.
The following morning, after spending the night in makeshift tents at the airport lounge, relatives of passengers not yet identified waited for news.
A middle-aged man and woman kept their gaze fixed through the fence, where remnants of the plane – seats, gates and twisted metal parts – were still scattered across the field.
