A tragic airplane acci:dent at an airport in South Korea is thought to have destr0yed all but two of the 181 persons on board.

The Jeju Air passenger airliner, a Boeing 737-800, had flown from Bangkok, Thailand, and landed near an airfield in the South Korean town of Muan.

News footage from the disaster showed the plane driving down the runway with its landing gear still closed before smashing with a wall and exploding in a fireball.

The cra:sh occurred at 9:03am local time and the emergency services rushed to the site of the disaster to try and recover people.

At the time of writing, only two of the 181 persons on board the plane had been rescued alive from the cra:sh, both of whom were crew members, raising concerns that the remaining passengers had passed away.

South Korea’s National Fire Agency confirmed that at least 174 people have di:e:d in the plane cra:sh – 83 women, 80 men and 11 people who were not immediately identifiable because of the fire.

Officials stated that the plane’s tail was the only identifiable part of the debris left after the crash, and investigations are currently ongoing to discover what happened.

A distress signal was made from the plane soon before it crashed, and the flight data and cockpit recording have been collected and will be examined as part of the investigation.

Jeju Air issued a ‘deep apology’ for the disaster and stated in a statement that it will do all possible to manage the ramifications of the inc:ident.

Airline chief Kim E-bae stated that he accepts ‘full responsibility’ for the catastrophe and that normal checks revealed no mechanical issues with the jet.