Video when South Korea plane crashes , 181 dead

A Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea crashed on arrival Sunday, smashing into a barrier and bursting into flames, leaving all but two feared dead.

A bird strike and adverse weather conditions were cited by authorities as likely causes of the crash that flung passengers out of the plane and left it “almost completely destroyed”, according to fire officials.

Video showed the Jeju Air plane from Bangkok landing on its belly at Muan International Airport, skidding off the runway as smoke streamed out from the engines, before crashing into a wall and exploding in flames ( click here to watch video)

“Passengers were ejected from the aircraft after it collided with the wall, leaving little chance of survival,” a local fire official told families at a briefing, according to a statement released by the fire brigade.

“The plane is almost completely destroyed, and identifying the deceased is proving difficult. The process is taking time as we locate and recover the remains,” he was quoted as saying.

Only two people were rescued, both flight attendants, and 167 people were confirmed dead by early evening, the fire department said in a statement.

An AFP photographer saw the burned-out wreckage of the Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 aircraft on the runway at Muan — some 288 kilometres (about 180 miles) southwest of Seoul — as firefighters and emergency vehicles worked nearby.

Bits of plane seats and luggage were strewn across the field next to the runway, not far from the charred tail, offering a glimpse into the catastrophic impact of the crash.