Jeju Air safety record

On 29 December 2024 flight 2216, a 737-800 arriving from Bangkok, struck a flock of birds as the crew went around at Muan, in the south-west of South Korea. Landing from the opposite direction minutes later, it touched down without its landing gear down, ran off the end of the runway and hit a concrete embankment that held the localizer, an antenna that guides landing aircraft. 179 of the 181 people on board lost their lives; two cabin crew survived. It was the worst accident on South Korean soil.

Korea's investigators confirmed in their preliminary report, in January 2025, that the aircraft had hit birds — Baikal teal remains were found in both engines — and that both flight recorders stopped about four minutes before the impact. No cause has been published yet: a briefing planned for July 2025 was withdrawn after families objected to it, and the board missed its own target of June 2026 for a final report. To make it independent, the investigation board was moved in 2026 from the transport ministry to the Prime Minister's Office. The investigation is ongoing.

The embankment has been examined on its own. In January 2026 the transport ministry told the National Assembly that the structure at Muan did not meet airport safety standards, which call for anything that close to a runway to break away on impact, and a study commissioned by the government concluded the accident would most likely have been survivable had it done so. Concrete structures like it are being replaced with breakaway ones at Muan and other Korean airports, and bird-detection radar is being added at airports from 2026.

Jeju Air cut its schedule by 10 to 15 percent for the rest of that winter to give its aircraft more time for maintenance, and the government told Korea's low-cost airlines to fly each aircraft fewer hours a day and hire more engineers. Jeju Air is replacing its 737-800s with 737 MAX 8s.

Jeju Air first flew in June 2006, between Jeju and Seoul Gimpo, and is the largest of South Korea's low-cost airlines. Before 2024 it had never had a fatal accident; the most serious event was in August 2007, when one of its Dash 8 turboprops ran off the runway at Busan after a rudder fault, and everyone on board survived.