US investigators to assist South Korea with plane crash investigation

U.S. investigators are helping South Korea investigate the plane crash on Sunday that killed 179 people on board a plane from Thailand.

The team of U.S. investigators will include the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, which manufactured the aircraft that went up in flames when it landed at Muan International Airport in South Korea on Sunday.

“The NTSB is leading a team of U.S. investigators (NTSB, Boeing and FAA) to assist the Republic of Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) with their investigation of the Dec. 29 Jeju Air accident at Muan International Airport in Muan, Republic of Korea,” the NTSB Newsroom account posted on the social platform X.

A Boeing 737-800 plane, operated by South Korea’s Jeju Air, departed from Bangkok, Thailand, and arrived in Muan, South Korea, at approximately 9 a.m. local time.

As of Sunday evening local time, 179 of 181 people aboard the plane were confirmed dead.

The two survivors were both crew members who were rescued from the back of the plane during the initial search, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. No one else was recovered alive from the wreckage.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport held a briefing Sunday afternoon and reported that the control tower had warned of birds in the area just before the plane landed, Yonhap reported. The pilot then sent out a “mayday” signal, and the airplane went up in flames a few minutes later.

“It is presumed to have been a bird strike. Smoke came out of one of the engines and then it exploded,” one surviving crew member said in a witness report, Yonhap reported.

Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 had 181 people on board, including 175 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots.