South Korea's Jeju Air plane crash is the deadliest in a year marked by several fatal aviation accidents
Rescue team members work at the site of a plane fire at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, on Dec 30, 2024. (Photo: AP/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korea's worst aviation disaster in decades also was the year's deadliest plane crash worldwide, and time is running out on 2024. A Boeing 737-800 plane operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air came down with its front landing gear closed and struck a concrete fence on Sunday (Dec 29) at Muan International Airport in southern South Korea, killing 179 people.
The deadliest accident in aviation history occurred in 1977, when two Boeing 747 jumbo jets collided on a foggy runway on the Spanish island of Tenerife, killing 583 of the 644 people on board the planes. Spanish investigators blamed the captain of the KLM 747 for taking off without clearance from air traffic controllers.
In an act of terrorism, nearly 3,000 people died when Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed four jetliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and a field in southwest Pennsylvania on Sep 11, 2001.
These are some of the significant aviation accidents that happened in 2024:
Jan 2: A large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on a Tokyo runway. All five people in the coast guard plane died, but all 379 on the Japan Airlines escaped before the jet became engulfed in flames.
Jun 10: A military plane carrying Vice President Saulos Chilima of Malawi and former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri crashes in bad weather in the southern African nation's mountainous north. They and the eight other people on board are killed.
Jul 24: In Nepal, a Saurya Airlines plane crashed shortly after taking off from the capital of Kathmandu, killing 18 people; one of the pilots survived. The Bombardier CRJ 200 plane was flying to a maintenance shop, and most of the passengers were mechanics or airline employees.
Aug 11: A turboprop operated by Brazil’s Voepass crashes, killing all 62 people on board. A preliminary report indicated that pilots saw ice building up on the outside of the plane, indicating a possible problem with the deicing system.
Dec 22: A small plane crashed in a mostly residential area of a Brazilian town popular with tourists, killing all 10 people on board and injuring more than a dozen on the ground. The cause was not immediately clear.
Dec 25: An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashes in Kazakhstan, killing 39 people; 29 survive. Azerbaijan’s president said the plane was shot down accidentally by Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised for the “tragic incident", but stopped short of accepting responsibility.
