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At Least 47 Killed in South Korea Plane Crash, 181 on Board; Putin Apologizes, Doesn't Take Responsibility For Jet Crash; At Least 240 People Detained in Gaza Hospital Raid; Just Aired 10-11p ET

Aired December 28, 2024 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:22]

PAULA NEWTON, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome. I'm Paula Newton in Atlanta. And we do begin with breaking news this hour.

At least 47 people have died in a plane crash in South Korea. Officials say a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 crashed while landing at the Muan International Airport in the southwestern part of the country. 175 passengers and 6 crew members were on board that flight. Fire officials say, the death toll is expected to rise -- at rise. At least two people, though, have survived. And rescue workers are racing to reach people in the tail section of this airplane, which is the only piece so far that we know that is intact.

CNN correspondent Mike Valerio is following this breaking news. And he does join us now live from Seoul.

Listen, Mike, just the early details here, pretty horrific. What are you learning, especially given the catastrophic nature of this crash?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT Well, I think that we are centering on this astounding storyline, part of this horrific crash, that all resources from the top of the presidential office here in Seoul have been dedicated to seeing if there are more people, Paula, who can be saved from this wreckage, potentially a third, fourth, who knows? But there seems to be optimism from first responders who are on the crash site because two people have been rescued that that tail section is, I don't want to say intact, but at least you can still see the tale. And there have been these two miraculous stories of people who have survived. The hope is that out of this astounding tragedy that perhaps more people can be rescued.

So the pictures are simply cataclysmic and just so arresting to look at. But this is essentially how we got here as far as we've been able to confirm at CNN. This starts with a Jeju airliner leaving Bangkok, Thailand, just after 2 a.m. local time. And to bring you all to speed with, you know, what is Jeju Air? What kind of airline is it? This is the largest budget airliner in South Korea, founded in 2005, wildly popular in this part of the world.

And if you want to go to a vacation destination, be it, you know, idyllic Jeju island, after which this airliner is named here in South Korea, if you want to go to Thailand, any of these other vacation destinations, this is an airline that's very popular with people in this part of the world to go to those vacation destinations on a budget.

So we have, in total, 181 people who are leaving Bangkok in the wee hours in the morning. It's 12:11 I believe the pushback time from the gate was at Bangkok. And then as far as we were able to see from open source intelligence and flight data, Paula, no problems, everything going according to plan in the just over five-hour flight time from Bangkok to Muan, which is about a three and a half hour drive south of Seoul, where we're coming to you from right now.

So what investigators at this very early stage, just after three hours of this catastrophe happening, may be honing in on is what was going on, if anything, what potential problems were happening with the landing here. We're still working on clearing, verifying beyond a shadow of a doubt early images, Paula, that seem to show the landing gear, the wheels that should come down from the plane, not down, and this airplane, this Boeing 737 800, landing on its belly and scraping the tarmac and then running into a wall, colliding with that wall and then engulfed in a fireball at the end of this terrible course that the airliner took.

So again, that is the very early sort of nexus point of where investigators may be looking. And of course, as we mentioned, this is a Boeing aircraft. So that could bring in investigators from Boeing from its Chicago headquarters, Washington state, authorities from the United States, to help people here in South Korea figure out just what went wrong and what happened because God forbid, this happens on another plane. They want to make sure that they have looked at what happened here to prevent anything like this from happening in the near and distant future, Paula.

NEWTON: Yeah, Mike, in the details that you've just given, obviously incredibly chilling, especially as family members there, wait to see if there are more survivors. And despite the video that we're looking at, there are times that many others are able to escape before the entire aircraft is engulfed by those flames that we continue to see there on air.

I do want to ask you though, was there any indication that the landing gear was not down, that they had radioed ahead to say that they were having trouble with this flight?

[22:05:08]

VALERIO: We're working on some reporting on that very subject, Paula. It does look like there was some sort of emergency signal. I don't want to go into too many details because we don't want, of course, reporting to be wrong after the fact. But that is [inaudible] that is being looked at. It does seem as though there was some sort of radio communication given out towards the end -- very end of the flight that something was going on. I don't want to be, you know, vague with that without saying, you know, our true intention, which is that we're just trying to sort through all the information, verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is correct. But that is certainly something that we are looking at here. What if any kind of radio transmission went out? And there does appear to be something that went out before this plane crashed. NEWTON: Fair enough. And no doubt, they -- from the two survivors that

we know of so far, they will obviously be gathering a lot of information. I do want to point out that we are now reporting that airport in Muan is now closed, as everyone can imagine, as rescue efforts and the investigation there continues.

Mike, given the fact that you just described this really as holidaymakers, I mean, suffice to say there would have been a lot of young people, a lot of families. If you can just let us know, you know, the kind of trips that this airline usually would undertake, especially to a vacation destination like Thailand.

VALERIO: Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head, Paula. This is a vacation. It's not only vacation, but that's what, you know, if I'm talking to buddies here in Seoul and they say, oh, I'm flying Jeju Air, it is to any of these idyllic vacation destinations in our corner of the world. And I think -- so we're going to be waiting to see how many families were on board at 2 a.m. coming back just before the New Year's holiday here in the middle of the coming week.

But I think, you know, if we do want to talk about broader context and the frayed emotions that this is happening in the middle of -- when we're talking about our emotions as a country here in South Korea, you know, we're talking about the acting president, Paula, who has directed all available resources. This is the third person with presidential powers who South Korea has had in the past month. We are still dealing with the chill and the specter of martial law being declared on December 3rd in the early -- the late evening into early morning hours that is certainly unprecedented in South Korea's new age as a blossoming democracy.

So the point I'm trying to make here is that a lot of people, you know, are on edge and have the thoughts of, we have been through so much here as a country that just seeing this video is so arresting and to happen at the very end of the year as we're hoping for a much better 2025. You know, I'm getting texts left and right of people who are concerned about, oh, this person is on vacation or that person is on vacation. You know, are they safe? It's a country and a populace that has been through so much. So this only adds to it.

And the details to your earlier point could be even worse as the fire department is expecting this death toll to rise. We're trying to work on a number of people who are unaccounted for. But again, we have nearly 50 people who have died and a plane that had 181 people on it. So we're trying to figure out now what happened to the rest of the people who make up that 181, you know, population that is on the plane. That could be heartbreaking for us to confirm in the hours to come, what happened to the rest of the people who have not been accounted for, Paula.

NEWTON: Yeah, indeed. Mike, we'll let you go and do more reporting. We will come back to you as soon as you have some more information. Mike Valerio for us live in Seoul.

VALERIO: Thanks, Paula. Appreciate it. NEWTON: Appreciate it. And joining us now from Chiang Mai, Thailand is CNN Transportation Analyst Mary Schiavo. She's also the former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation. And I am so grateful to have you here. You're actually in Thailand, Mary. I'm wondering about your first impressions, especially when we hear so soon the fact that that landing gear did not seem to be engaged the way it should be upon landing.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST; Well, and looking at the video, I mean, as always, video gives us a tremendous number of clues, I mean, you can see clearly the gear isn't down. But with the reports, alleged reports of a bird strike, you know, it -- one of the first things you question is, did it take out one of the engines? Another question I would have is, were they coming in to do an attempt to go around, you know, go over the runway and then go around to see what they can determine if the gear was truly down because a bird strike could have also damaged indicators. Maybe there were problems with the lights and they didn't know for sure whether the gear was down or not.

[22:10:00]

It's a very, you know, proper procedure to first do a go around, come into the airport, go over the runway and have the tower actually look to confirm whether your gear is down or up. So that's not difficult. But then, they went ahead and landed on this trip around the runway. And in looking at the video, it's difficult to see if the thrust reversers were deployed, you know, those clamshell things, that's a very bad description, but on the back of the engines to slow them down. And then of course, in terms of survivability, they did have a little bit of an overrun area at the end of the airport that I -- runway that I can see. But they had equipment there. They had equipment lighting, equipment -- other equipment used for the airport. And clearly, they hit that in a fence. So it wasn't a clear runway overrun area, even though they did have, you know, like some airports [inaudible] actually you go right into the water or other places. So there were a lot of things going on.

It's reminiscent of a flight that we talked about here on CNN, I think, many years ago, Pakistani Airways, that came in for a go around like this to have them look to confirm that -- whether the gear was up or down and then had to go ahead and set the plane down. The plane -- they just couldn't do a go around. They had to go ahead and land. So there are many unanswered questions.

But Mike was certainly right. Thailand is full of merrymakers. I was in Bangkok last night, and the transportation and the aviation, and the airlines, and the hotels, everything is just teeming with families celebrating the holidays. So we can bet that this flight was most likely full. Lots of families from Korea, from China, from Japan, from all of Southeast Asia. And I would expect that the death toll, very, very sad, in this holiday season would go higher.

NEWTON: Absolutely, Mary. And you can see already that this is really going to turn into a national tragedy for South Korea at a time when it's going through so much of a crisis. I do want to get to the equipment. This is a 737-800, as you have reminded us so many times before, a workhorse internationally and incredibly safe.

When we're talking about this aircraft itself, you know, what strikes you about it in terms of how it would perform if it -- if, let's say, there was a bird strike in one engine or something else that happened with the landing gear?

SCHIAVO: Well, once you've got the plane out of its normal flight mode modes, when it has to go to an alternative flight mode, it depends often what your inputs are.

Now, like I said, I can only go back to other crashes. I'm not saying it -- that we've worked on. I'm not saying it happened in this one. But there have sometimes been problems where if a bird strike does damage one engine or damage some equipment, the pilots have to be very careful to make sure that they are shutting down the engine that was damaged. Sometimes, it's difficult and this has happened that they've shut down the wrong engine. Not saying that happened here. I'm just going back to other crashes. And if they were coming around to have the tower confirm whether the gear was up or down, indeed, it was up, that was not deployed.

And then in other cases, sometimes, you know, the pilots have gotten a little bit behind the plane. And they have had to just go ahead and land without the gear down. And the other thing that we have to mention is a lot of people seen lots of movies, we've seen lots of video coverage and news coverage where they foam the runways.

Well, you know, if you're just coming around for a look see and have the tower to confirm that the gear is up or down, it wouldn't be foamed. And not all airports have foam equipment. That doesn't happen everywhere.

NEWTON: Yeah. And this wasn't the main airport in the capital, Seoul. Mary, I had a quick chance to look at the fleet for this, a low cost carrier as -- you again have reminded us, it's a low cost carrier, which means it tries to stick to just one type of plane because that keeps maintenance costs down and it just keeps down costs for the airline in general.

Would you have any concerns at all? I mean, in general, there are very good safety records here, right, that we're looking at in general?

SCHIAVO: Well, what you always want to look at is the -- also, the safety rating of the nation from the -- where the flag -- what the plane is flagged under the nation, under whose laws that it fly.

Now, obviously Korea is an aviation nation. The Federal Aviation Administration, United States reviews them, gives them a level one, says that they have safety oversight, that their regulators are good, and that they really enforce those safety laws on South Korean carriers. Thailand is just coming out of a lower grade. Thailand was downgraded by the FAA back in, I think, 2018. And so they had a level two, but that is about to be lifted. And aviation is just exploding in Thailand, and Korea, and Southeast Asia, and China. And so the regulators really have to stay on top of the growth. So it's not just whether you're a low-cost carry. And it's not low-cost carry. It costs the same to put gas in an airplane no matter who's running it.

[22:15:02]

But what they try to do is save money in other ways, baggage fees. The seats are really tight on a lot of these airlines. You have to do your best to squeeze in. And so it's not necessarily whether the fares are cheap but whether they have low-cost maintenance or they aren't on top of it. But Korea gets from the Federal Aviation Administration Level 1 rating. Thailand is coming back in January with a Level 1 rating.

So until they really dig deeply into the actual history of this airline and more particularly this plane. And has this plane had some problems? Has it just come out of maintenance? Were there issues? Was it really a bird strike or had there been other problems? And the training of the flight crew, were they trained to do this? Everybody is trained -- you know, you're supposed to be trained to do a gear up landing. But you know, it's a lot harder in real life than in training. And a lot of training is done by a computer these days.

NEWTON: Right. A lot to learn for anyone who flies, which is why we will continue to stay on top of the story hour by hour here as we learn more. Mary Schiavo, again, so grateful to have you with us. And we will continue to check in with you as well.

All right. Stay with CNN for the latest on this breaking story. We will have much more on this deadly plane crash in South Korea just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEWTON: All right. We want to bring you right up to speed with the latest on the breaking news. In South Korea, at least 47 people are dead after a passenger jet crash landed at an Airport in Muan.

[22:20:07]

181 people were on board, the Boeing 737-800. And firefighters say, the death toll is expected to rise. Firefighters say, the plane was mostly destroyed by fire. You can see some of the pictures there.

So far, emergency workers have rescued at least two people. Rescue teams are now focusing on reaching the people in the plane's tail section. The fire department says, a landing gear malfunction appears to have caused the crash. But we must stress this, is preliminary information and we continue to bring you the latest with live reports from Seoul.

Now, meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized for the fact that an Azerbaijan Airlines Flight crashed after entering Russian airspace on Christmas Day. But he did not say that Russia was responsible.

Now, during a phone call with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Putin called it a tragic incident. He said Russia's air defense systems were active at the time, which a U.S. Official has suggested may have mistakenly shot down the jet. Aliyev told Putin that external interference led to a complete loss of control before the plane went down in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.

Here's what U.S. President Joe Biden had to say about that deadly crash on Saturday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOMAN #1: Should Putin take responsibility for the plane crash?

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Apparently, he did, but I haven't spoken yet with my team.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: CNN's Nada Bashir is following the latest developments.

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as questions continue to mount over the possible connection between Russian air defense systems and Wednesday's deadly plane crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued an apology for the fact that the flight crashed after entering Russian airspace around the Chechen city of Grozny, acknowledging, according to Kremlin, that Russia's air defense systems were in fact active when the plane attempted to land in Grozny, however, no admission of responsibility from Moscow. Investigations are still ongoing.

But nearby Ukrainian drone attacks in the moments preceding the crash have led some officials to believe that the plane may have been downed mistakenly by Russian anti-aircraft defenses, with officials in Azerbaijan saying that the plane came under external physical and technical interferences while in Russian airspace.

Meanwhile, several aviation experts and U.S. officials have said that perforations seen in the fuselage are consistent with shrapnel damage from an explosion, though the cause of the holes in the wreckage has not yet been confirmed. Investigators are continuing to assess the evidence, including two black box recorders which were recovered from the wreckage, as well as, of course, eyewitness accounts.

Remarkably, 29 people out of 67 on board the flight survived the crash, some of whom filmed their final moments on the flight. One survivor describing a loud bang being heard and felt before the plane began to descend. But it could still be a matter of days or even weeks before any final conclusions are made by investigators. For now, at least five airlines have suspended flights to areas in Russia, many citing safety concerns. Neda Bashir, CNN, London.

NEWTON: All right. Stay with us. We will have much more coming up on the breaking news from South Korea. The latest details just ahead after a fiery plane crash leaves dozens of people dead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:27:10]

NEWTON: And welcome back. You are watching CNN newsroom. I'm Paula Newton. And we do have an update on our top story. The death toll from the plane crash in South Korea is now at least 62.

181 people were on board, the Juju Air Flight. It was traveling from Bangkok to southwestern South Korea when it crash landed at the Muan International Airport. Now, emergency workers say, the plane has been almost completely destroyed by fire. Rescue operations are underway, though at this hour, two people have survived so far. And that's according to fire department officials. Investigators are on the scene. And South Korea's Acting President has ordered the mobilization of all available resources to that airport.

We want to go now straight to CNN's Mike Valerio, who's been following the story.

And again, Mike, had you warned us just a few moments ago that the death toll would unfortunately rise?

VALERIO: Right. And that's exactly where we pick up this horrifying, cataclysmic storyline. And I want to hone in on the point that we have 181 passengers on board. The death toll is now 62. So that leaves 119, Paula, people unaccounted for. Again, we have 119 people unaccounted for in this cataclysmic explosion about three and a half hours south of Seoul, South Korea, where we're broadcasting from right now.

So to take you through what we know, what we've been able to piece together, this happened, keeping track of time here, three and a half hours ago when a plane that left Bangkok, Thailand, just after 2 a.m. local time takes off, you know, a whole host of people to the point earlier you were making, Paula, coming back to South Korea after a fantastic, you know, wonderful Christmas holiday, having a, you know, wonderful time in Thailand and all these vacation points across Southeast Asia. So many friends and family members here in Seoul, specifically throughout South Korea, coming back from Christmas vacation, ready to ring in the New Year. And this is one of those planes that's coming back from Bangkok, was due to land just after 9 a.m. local time.

And it seems, based on open source intelligence that we've been able to look at, flight paths from flightaware.com and other websites, other ways that we can look at what happened at the flight for its five-ish hours of flight time, nothing went wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary until the very end when the local fire department is saying that something appears to have happened with the landing gear.

And video that we are trying to confirm, validate beyond any shadow of a doubt that, you know, it is real video, that appears to show the landing gear not deploying. And we're talking about the front and aft wheels, and a 737-800 Boeing aircraft, landing on its belly at Muan International Airport, and then careening into one of the walls is at the very end of one of Muan Airport's runways.

[22:30:14]

So we have an all-out, an all-out declaration from the Acting President of South Korea to put in as many resources that can be mobilized as possible to see if anybody else can be saved. We're working on reporting in terms of who exactly was saved, if those

were two crew members or perhaps two passengers. We do have reporting confirming that it appears as though two Thai nationals are among the dead. And local authorities say that at this hour, it appears as though, most of the rest seem to be people who call South Korea home.

So again, you made the point, Paula, earlier, and we're trying to stress to our viewers throughout the world, South Korea, this is a country that has been through so much this month of December. We're talking about martial law in the late hours of December 3rd to the early morning hours of December 4th, something that hasn't happened since 1980, the impeachment of its President, two Acting Presidents. We're now in our second Acting President here for this month alone. So this is a country that, you know, one friend here in Seoul is texting me, everybody is glued to these images who's not out at lunch or hiking on this beautiful day, just saying we cannot catch a break here in South Korea. The pictures are so arresting. And we're just hoping that more people can be saved, you know, those sentiments coming from friends who are just texting us and trying to figure out what is going on.

So again, the hope is that perhaps, there will be another miracle, more people who again perhaps could be saved. But we again are three and a half hours after this crash. And 119 people, Paula, who remain unaccounted for.

NEWTON: Yeah. And you make a good point, Mike, in terms of what South Koreans have been through in the last few weeks. And no doubt, they will interpret this as a national tragedy. In general, if you can give us the character of this airline, I mean, it's the largest low budget airline. And it's something I'm sure many from around the world were used to taking those holiday hops, right, that you do on airlines like this.

VALERIO: Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. So this is Jeju Airlines, Jeju Air, named after Jeju Island, which is the Hawaii, so to speak, of South Korea, a beautiful island in the southern part of South Korea. So Jeju Air, a vacation, low budget airliner that people take for destinations to the tropical, beautiful destinations between South Korea, and East Asia, and Southeast Asia, certainly the these idyllic locations in Thailand among them. And we're at a point where people are coming back in multitudes after having fantastic Christmas vacations, getting back into the slow rhythm of normal life in Seoul and throughout the Korean peninsula, throughout South Korea. And now, we are hit with this tragedy and a death toll that has continued to rise.

Our first broadcast a couple hours ago, we were reporting 20 some odd people dead, that death toll rising into the 40s and now into the 60s. And the fear is that, this national tragedy will get so much worse with, again, 119 people who authorities still have not been able to confirm against the flight roster where they are and, you know, what has happened to them. So we are all holding our breaths, communicating with authorities three and a half hours south of here about just what they are doing to see if there are any more miracles that can happen, Paula. NEWTON: Okay. Mike, standby and stay close for us as we continue to

get more information, as you point out, those rescue teams are at the airport right now. Appreciate it.

And we now want to bring in Geoffrey Thomas. He's editor of Airline News. He joins us now from Perth, Australia. Really good to have you with us, Geoffrey. I mean, your first impressions given, there is a lot of video. So I'm just wondering what you thought when you first saw it.

GEOFFREY THOMAS, EDITOR OF AIRLINE NEWS: Oh, look, this is an extraordinary tragedy that's obviously going to claim many, many lives. And it's a miracle that anybody has actually survived this terrible inferno and crash. But one thing that's very perplexing is the reports that are coming in that the aircraft landed without the undercarriage deployed.

Now, whether or not, it's a little bit unclear whether or not the undercarriage collapsed on landing or whether the undercarriage was not deployed at all. This is a really serious issue that I think obviously investigators will be very much focused on.

NEWTON: You know, for people watching at home, they may think to themselves, well, you know, in terms of the gravity of trying to do something like that and that no pilots, if they understood that their landing gear had not deployed, would never attempt something like that.

[22:35:11]

So I'm just wondering, you know, I've been on a flight, as I'm sure you have been before, where you do do that flyby because the control tower wants to see if your landing gear is down or not and they check it. I'm just wondering where you come at this in terms of an investigative point of view?

THOMAS: Well, look, it's very fundamental system that works on these aircraft and all aircraft, you know, literally tens of thousands of times a day. The undercarriage lever goes down, you get three greens. If you don't get three greens, you get a red or three reds or whatever, depending on which part of the gear is deployed. If that's the case, if you got reds, then you talk to the control tower and they will visually tell you whether or not the gear is down or not. They had perfect weather, so a flyby of the control tower would have been easily possible.

And then if the gear had not deployed, then the next stage in an emergency like that would be that all the fire engines would be laying foam all over the runway and there will be all sorts of fire and emergency protocols put in place and equipment ready for this particular type of landing.

So the only explanation at this stage is that, for some reason, either the pilots forgot to deploy the undercarriage and again, there's warning systems for that as well. There's a ground proximity warning system that tells the pilots that the ground is too close and that the undercarriage is not deployed. So there are multiple warning systems in place to prevent such an accident. So obviously, way too early to tell. The black boxes will now become critical. That's if the pilots have not -- if the pilot did not survive this accident. Any control tower conversations as well.

This one is perplexing. You've got a beautiful fine day. You've got an excellent airplane. You've got a good airport, dry conditions. It is perplexing.

NEWTON: Yeah. And even though it is, what we were saying, a low-cost airline, it has a good safety record. South Korea has a good safety record. To that point, this is a 737-800 incredibly safe aircraft. And it's not a Max, we should also say. And this is -- I checked the fleet, this is the kind of plane that this airline has had for a very long time and would have known exactly how to, you know, service it, how to maintain it, and for any warning signs, right, on any kind of malfunctions?

THOMAS: Well, you're absolutely right, Paula. The 737-800 or NG as we call it, is one of the most widely used aircraft in the world. Each one is used about four or five times a day, four or five flights a day. It is the most reliable aircraft in the world. And it's been in service for 20 years. Everybody knows how it works and it works really, really well.

And the maintenance done in Korea is as good as it gets around the world. They're rated very, very highly. So everything about this ticks the box. The airplane is great. The airline is great. Great record. Perfect weather. Blue sky days, as I said, good runway, early morning. Everything is right, but everything went wrong. Why? How can that possibly happen that everything goes wrong in virtually perfect conditions?

And as you say, the airline is a great airline. Been around for many, many years. Got 41 of these aircraft in their fleet. Perform literally thousands of flights a week without any incidents at all.

NEWTON: Yeah, absolutely. As you said, incredibly perplexing. And the rescue teams are there as are the investigators already at the scene trying to piece it together. Geoffrey Thomas, we'll continue to stay in touch with you. Really appreciate it.

Now, the last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza now sits empty and partially burned out. That's according to the World Health Organization. And witnesses following Israel's raid -- latest raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital. Now, the IDF says at least 240 people have been detained for questioning, claiming they're Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. Some patients and staff have been transferred to another hospital which the WHO described as destroyed and nonfunctional.

As Elliott Gotkine reports, witnesses are describing horrific scenes played out during and after this raid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[22:40:03]

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A hospital on fire and encircled.

MAN #1: (Speaking in Foreign Language)

GOTKINE: Patients and staff gather anxiously at the entrance of northern Gaza's last major functioning hospital. Others fight flames.

WOMAN #2: (Speaking in Foreign Language)

GOTKINE: These words from a nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the midst of an evacuation order from the Israeli military. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital's director, is one of the last doctors in northern Gaza. He had been documenting the horror inside his hospital in the wake of an Israeli offensive that began in early October.

HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA, KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL'S DIRECTOR (Translated): We had spoken and appealed to the world to protect and neutralize the medical system. But unfortunately, this is the grim reality we are witnessing.

GOTKINE: On Friday, he was assaulted and detained by Israeli forces. Witnesses tell CNN, on Saturday, the IDF said, he was being questioned in Gaza suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative, but didn't provide evidence for the claim.

Meantime, video shared widely appears to show the front of Kamal Adwan Hospital with people walking between a number of tanks. Many appear to be holding their own clothes with hands held above their heads.

MAN #2 (Translated): From Kamal Adwan Hospital to Al-Fakhoura, they made us strip down to our underwear. It was a tough situation. And they assaulted the wounded and women.

GOTKINE: In a briefing, an IDF spokesperson said, people were asked to remove clothes to ensure no one was carrying explosives.

SHUROUQ SALAH, NURSE AT KAMA ADWAN HOSPITAL (Translated): They separated the men from the women and took the women in groups. Those who refused to remove their clothing were beaten. And they took our phones. I didn't have a phone. But those who were refusing to hand over their phones were beaten. And those who refused to take off their clothes were also beaten.

GOTKINE: The IDF says that it had carried out targeted operations around the hospital based on intelligence regarding the presence of terrorist infrastructure and operatives there. CNN cannot confirm these claims.

On Friday, the World Health Organization said the raid took the last major health facility in north Gaza out of service, adding that the systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of healthcare.

Many patients now evacuated to Gaza's other hospitals, which medical staff say are not fit for purpose. This critically ill man evacuated from Kamal Adwan, still in an ambulance Saturday after he was evacuated a day earlier.

Inside another hospital, this man tries to explain what happened to him, appearing to make signs of gunfire and beating. All the while, Gaza's healthcare system in a seemingly never ending freefall.

Elliott Gotkine, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: Israel's Prime Minister is set to undergo surgery to remove his prostate that's in the coming hours, his office says. Benjamin Netanyahu had a medical exam on Wednesday when doctors discovered a urinary tract infection caused by a benign enlarged prostate.

The infection has already been treated with antibiotics. Israel's government is still set to hold its meeting planned for Sunday. CNN has reached out to Mr. Netanyahu's office to find out who will fill in as interim leader during this procedure. The Prime Minister is 75 years old.

And we will take a quick break, but stay with us. When we return, the latest on the breaking news, that deadly plane crash in South Korea.

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[22:47:31]

NEWTON: An update now in our breaking news, at least 62 people are dead after a passenger jet crash landed at an airport in Muan, South Korea. 181 people were on board, the Boeing 737-800. And firefighters say, the death toll is expected to rise. Firefighters say, the plane was mostly destroyed by fire.

Now, so far, emergency workers have rescued at least two people. Rescue teams are now focusing on reaching the people in the plane's tail section. You see it there. The Fire department says, a landing gear malfunction appears to have caused the crash. But we caution, these are still the early hours and we will continue to bring you the latest on that crash as we get it.

Donald Trump is finally taking sides in the civil war brewing among his supporters. Like his high profile supporter, Elon Musk, the President Elect is defending the Visa Program that allows skilled workers to immigrate to the United States. Trump says, he's a believer. That's in his words in the visa, and apparently always has been. This is quite the turnaround for the Republican.

In his first term, Trump restricted access to foreign worker visas and has previously criticized the program. Elon Musk's support for foreign workers has sparked outcry among MAGA loyalists who took a hard line on immigration.

The Trump administration is preparing for an aggressive immigration crackdown when it returns to power. But migrants are already facing hardship before they even get to the United States. Karol Suarez has our story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAROL SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eduard (ph) is a barber with an American dream. He left Venezuela a decade ago and is now in Mexico City.

MAN #3 (Translated): I'm heading to the border. Since I got here, it's been eight months and I tried three times.

SUAREZ: Mexico is a country of origin, transit, and destination for migration flows in the region. Nearly 1 million migrants have entered Mexico illegally this year, including people from Sri Lanka, India, Colombia, Guatemala, and Ecuador, among other countries.

In this makeshift camp, migrants rest and apply daily for U.S. asylum appointments. One migrant told us, he's been here over a year without success. He calls the uncertain wait here the hardest part of his journey. Some of those in limbo aren't happy with how they are treated.

WOMAN #3 (Translated): The worst thing in the world, we feel terrible because we are discriminated against. And the children can't go to school because they're bullied.

[22:50:03]

WOMAN #3 (Translated): The worst of the seven countries we've traveled through is Mexico. The worst.

SUAREZ: Authorities told CNN that migrant complaints of alleged abuse by officials rarely make it to the prosecutor's office. Meanwhile, others have learned to cope with the situation.

MAN #4 (Translated): We feel okay. We already know about the xenophobia and everything happening here. We just have to have faith in God.

SUAREZ: However, they say the frustration they feel is hard to keep to themselves.

WOMAN #3 (Translated): If human rights were respected, as they say, they would give us a permit like they did with the caravan. But they don't do it.

SUAREZ: For some, the road north stops here.

MAN #5 (Translated): I have had enough and I'm going back to Venezuela. I have decided to stop wasting time.

SUAREZ: Jesus (ph) says he won't forget the experience of being a migrant. But he admits, he did not achieve his goals. And now, it's time to reunite with his family.

Karol Suarez, Mexico City.

(END VIDEOTAPE) NEWTON: All right. There is much more ahead here on CNN. Our special coverage of the deadly crash of Jeju Air, that jetliner continues. We will have the very latest live from Seoul, South Korea. Stay with us.

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[22:55:12]

NEWTON: All right. An update on our breaking news story. At least 62 people have died after a Jeju Air passenger jet crash landed at an airport in Muan, South Korea. Fire officials say, the Boeing 737-800 plane suffered a malfunction with its landing gear.

A video from the scene shows enormous plumes of smoke and in fact, also there, you can see the flames. 181 people in total were on board the plane, which was traveling from Bangkok. Remarkably, two people have been rescued. Investigators are now on the scene. And South Korea's Acting President has instructed emergency responders to mobilize all available personnel and equipment to respond to that crash scene. We will continue to update that story for you.

Meantime, extreme weather continues to threaten much of the United States. Around 8 million Americans are currently under tornado watches. And more than 2 million have been under a rare, particularly dangerous situation that is a clear warning. According to the U.S. National Weather Service, parts of Mississippi have already seen their share of violent weather. National Weather Service warns the strongest tornadoes could bring widespread damaging winds. That's just in the hours ahead. The threat area moves eastward on Sunday. Anyone in those areas, stay close to your phones.

I'm Paula Newton. I'll be right back with more of our breaking news out of South Korea in a moment.

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