SOUTH KOREA: At least 118 people were killed when an Air China Boeing 767 jet with 166 passengers and crew crashed shortly before it landed in South Korea yesterday.
The aircraft ploughed into a wooded South Korean mountain in heavy rain and fog yesterday.
Thirty-nine passengers miraculously survived when the 17-year-old Boeing 767, flying from Beijing to Pusan, crashed and broke into pieces near apartments as it struggled to land in thick fog at Kimhae airport shortly after 11 a.m local time.
The crash of Flight CA129 came just six weeks before the World Cup is due to be co-hosted by South Korea and Japan. Tens of thousands of fans from around the world are expected to visit the two countries during the competition.
The doomed flight had 12 crew, and 154 passengers on board; 135 were Korean nationals and 19 Chinese. There was one Uzbek.
Officials said late last night that 118 deaths had been confirmed at the site or in hospital, while 13 people were still not accounted for. Of 54 people who initially had survived 15 later died. Many had staggered down the mountainside to seek help.
A South Korean professor on board the ill-fated aircraft used his mobile phone to warn that the Air China jet was going to crash.
Mr Lee Kang-Dae (42), a professor of Chinese at Geoyeongsan University, telephoned a travel agency for help just before the plane crashed into a mountain near the city of Busan.
The final conversation between the pilot of the jet and the control tower indicates that while the tower told the pilot to land at runway 36L, the plane was preparing to land at runway 18R.
It was the first crash for Air China, Beijing's state-owned flag carrier, which is seeking a strategic airline investor as part of plans to go private and list on the stock exchange.
The airline is the largest air carrier in China in terms of traffic volume and company assets and flies the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, and other top officials on their domestic and foreign trips.
Chinese regional airlines suffered a string of crashes in the early 1990s but have steadily improved their safety record since.
Hundreds of rescuers were last night combing through smoking wreckage strewn amid trees on a foggy hillside.
OThe South Korean government yesterday ordered thorough checks of air, land and sea transport safety as well as medical centres in advance of the World Cup.
The cabinet also ordered a full investigation into the crash, urging close co-operation with China in the inquiry.