After killing more than 170 people A plane crashed while landing in South Korea On Sunday morning.

Shocking video footage showed a Jeju Airlines plane running off the runway before hitting a barrier and bursting into flames at Muan International Airport.

The plane, which was returning from Bangkok in Thailand, was carrying 181 people, 179 of whom died, while two crew members were rescued from the wreckage.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, which fire officials indicated may have been caused by a bird strike and bad weather conditions. But experts warned that the accident may have been caused by a number of factors.

The flight, 7C2216, was a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, Korea’s most popular low-cost airline.

Air traffic control cleared the plane to land at Muan International Airport at around 08:54 local time on Sunday (23:54 GMT) – just three minutes before a warning was issued about bird activity in the area.

At 08:59, the pilot reported that the aircraft had struck a bird, announcing “Bird strike, bird strike, go.” The pilot then aborted the original landing and requested permission to land from the opposite direction.

Air traffic control authorized an alternate landing at 09:01, and at 09:02, the aircraft made contact with the ground, landing at the center of the approximately 2,800-metre-long runway.

One of the videos shows the plane landing without using its wheels or any other landing gear. The plane skidded down the runway, overshot it, and hit the wall before bursting into flames.

One witness told South Korean news agency Yonhap that they heard a “loud bang” followed by a “series of explosions.”

Videos from the scene show the plane on fire and smoke rising into the sky. Fire crews later extinguished the fire.

The first survivor of the crash was rescued at approximately 09:23, while the second was rescued from inside the back of the aircraft at approximately 09:50.

Lee Jeong-hyun, head of the Muan Fire Department, said in a televised press conference that bird collisions and bad weather may have caused the plane crash, but the exact cause is still under investigation.

The flight and audio recorders were recovered from the plane, although Yonhap News Agency reported that the former was damaged.

One of the investigators told the news agency that the black boxes could take up to a month to decode.

Local media reported that a passenger on the plane sent a message to one of his relatives saying that a bird “was stuck in its wing” and that the plane was unable to land.

But officials have not confirmed whether the plane actually hit any birds.

Yonhap quoted the head of Jeju Airlines’ management as saying that the accident was not due to “any maintenance issues.”

The South Korean Department of Transport said that the lead pilot on the flight has held this position since 2019 and has more than 6,800 flight hours of experience.

Geoffrey Thomas, an aviation expert and editor of Airline News magazine, told the BBC that South Korea and its airlines were considered “best practice in the industry” and that the planes and the airline had an “excellent safety record.”

Thomas separately told Reuters news agency that he doubted that bird collisions alone could have been the cause of the accident.

He said: “Bird collisions are not unusual. Problems with the undercarriage are not unusual. Bird collisions happen often, but they usually do not cause the loss of the aircraft in and of themselves.”

The plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members. Authorities said two of the passengers were Thai and the rest were believed to be from South Korea. It is believed that many of them were returning from a Christmas holiday in Thailand.

The official death toll stands at 179, making it the deadliest plane crash in South Korean history.

All passengers and four crew members died.

Officials are collecting saliva samples from family members gathered at Muan Airport to help identify the bodies of the victims. Other victims were identified through their fingerprints.

So far, authorities have identified 141 bodies.

Five of the dead were children under 10 years old, authorities said, citing a passenger statement. The youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78 years old.

Maing Ji Soo, 78, whose nephew and grandchildren were on the plane, told the BBC: “I can’t believe the whole family has just disappeared.” “My heart hurts so much.”

South Korea’s National Fire Agency said two crew members – a man and a woman – survived the crash. She added that they were found in the back of the plane after it crashed and were taken to the hospital.

The man has woken up and is “fully able to communicate,” Yonhap reported, citing the director of the Seoul hospital where he is being treated.

More than 1,500 emergency personnel were deployed as part of the recovery effort, including 490 firefighters and 455 police officers. They searched the area around the runway for parts of the plane and those on board.

Acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered an emergency safety inspection of the entire airline operations in the country.

Muan has also been declared a special disaster area, making central government funding available to local government and victims.

All flights to and from Muan International Airport have been cancelled.

A seven-day national mourning period has been declared, and the country’s New Year celebrations are likely to be canceled or curtailed.

Airliner Boeing said it is in contact with Jeju Air and is “ready to support them.”

Jeju Airlines apologized to the families, with its CEO saying in a press conference that the company had no history of accidents. Sunday’s accident is believed to be the only fatal accident since the company’s launch in 2005.

A bird collision is a collision between an aircraft in flight and a bird. They’re so common that in the UK, more than 1,400 bird collisions were reported in 2022, of which only about 100 affected the aircraft, according to Data from the Civil Aviation Authority.

The most famous bird strike occurred in 2009, when a bird attacked An Airbus plane made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York After colliding with a flock of geese. All 155 passengers and crew survived.

Professor Doug Drury, who studies aviation at CQUniversity Australia, wrote in an article for Conversation This summer, Boeing planes – such as Airbus and Embraer – have turboprop engines, which can be severely damaged if birds crash into them.

He said pilots are trained to be especially careful during the early morning or at sunset, when birds are most active.

But some aviation experts doubt whether a bird collision caused the Muan Airport crash.

“Usually they are [bird strike] “It doesn’t cause the loss of an aircraft on its own,” Thomas told Reuters.

Australian aviation safety expert Geoffrey Dale told the news agency: “I have never seen a bird strike prevent the landing gear from being extended.”