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At Least 47 Dead After South Korean Airliner Crash. Aired 9:45- 9:53p ET

Aired December 28, 2024 - 21:45   ET

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

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[21:46:08]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: I'm Jessica Dean in New York. We have breaking news. We know now at least 47 people are dead after a South Korean airliner crashed as it was landing that plane carrying 175 passengers and 6 crew members. This happened just after 9 a.m. local time Sunday morning. That's now nearly three hours ago at the Muan Airport. That's a city in the country's southwest region.

We're told that the rescues are ongoing. And miraculously, two people have been pulled from the wreckage. CNN correspondent Mike Valerio is joining us now from Seoul, South Korea. And Mike, we now know that the Acting President of South Korea has directed all available resources there to try to find any additional survivors. What more are you learning?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're trying to see if there's going to be a third or, you know, additional people rescued because we are now two plus hours after this crash has happened. And remarkably, we do have two people who apparently survived. And the directive, according to the local fire department, is to try to see if more people can be saved from the tail section of the aircraft. And that has or that is the center point of some of the most dramatic images that we have seen. This is the plume of smoke that is emanating from the end of the Runway at Muan International Airport right after this crash happened.

And we also have the video and images on our story that's now up on cnn.com where you can see out of the wreckage the tail that's just jutting up from this mound of debris that is still smoldering and on fire. So of course, the aim here is to figure out how in the world this could have happened. We are still aiming to clear, and verify, and review images of the final moments of this plane before the fireball consumed so much of it, nearly all of it just after 9 a.m. local time here in South Korea.

So what we have, we've been able to confirm this is a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, so manufactured in Washington State. This could bring in investigators from Boeing and the United States to help out authorities here in South Korea to figure out just what went wrong as this plane was approaching its landing again about three and a half hours south of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. So this started in Bangkok, 181 people on board. And from what we can tell so far, looking at flight data that's part

of our open source intelligence news gathering, there seems, Jessica, to have been zero problems whatsoever. Nothing of note from the beginning of this flight, 2 a.m. local time, or I should say just after 2 a.m. local time in Bangkok as it made its way to the southwestern part of South Korea. So what we've been able to look at and turn our attention to is the landing gear. There have been so many experts who have seen the initial images right before the crash, images that we're still clearing for TV and for social media, and for all of our platforms. And noticing that perhaps the landing gear may not have been deployed. So if that is indeed the case, if it doesn't look like any of the wheels were down on this aircraft, certainly why was that? What in the world happened? So we've been able to also confirm two Thai nationals on board the aircraft. And from local authorities down there in Muan, it seems as though the rest are apparently South Korean nationals. But we still have yet to put the final reporting points on that element of the story here at CNN.

Five hours, the total flight, and it's worth saying that this airline, Jeju Air, low-budget aircraft or low-budget airline, founded in 2005. For everybody who's watching us back home in the United States and around the world, this is an airline that has a relatively strong safety record.

[21:50:05]

No huge cataclysmic crashes in recent years that would mar its safety record. And whole multitudes of people take Jeju Air to get to their vacation destinations around the region here in East Asia on a budget, very popular. Not just a tiny airline here in this corner of the world, but a very large, low-budget carrier that serves all corners of South Korea and many other countries in Asia.

So again, what we're watching for, Jessica, is to see if there's going to be a miracle if more people are saved from this wreckage and if we get any early indications of what exactly happened here. And, you know, we talked about it the last time that you and I were both on the air. This is a country where there are still protests and still the anger and disbelief of martial law that has consumed South Korea in the early part of December. This country has been through so much. We are now on our third president, or I should say, the second president, who is now in an acting capacity because of impeachment that has engulfed the political system here. So to say that this is such a shock for South Korea, a huge American ally, where there are thousands of Americans, I think that could be the understatement of your evening, my morning right here, Jessica.

DEAN: Yeah, for sure. And look, we're looking at these videos that are just astounding. The fact that there are any survivors is truly shocking. But going back to the fact that this is a Boeing plane, of course, Boeing has had a lot of trouble over the last couple of years. And so again, we don't know yet how this -- I mean, it's still -- they're still trying to hopefully pull out some survivors. We hope there are more survivors on the back end of that plane, but there will certainly be a massive investigation into exactly what went wrong here. And Mike, to your point, in these videos that are floating around, that we're still trying to validate and, you know, make sure are exactly right. It does appear, though, if those turn out to be true, that they're just -- that they're -- the landing, it's just skidding across the Runway there.

VALERIO: Right. And to that point, you know, our buddy, Jessica, and I, you know, meet Pete Muntean, our lead aviation correspondent, he's traveling at the moment. Got him on the phone and text before we came on the air. And he said, to your point, landing gear on a commercial airline that might not be deployed, that is extremely, exceedingly rare. That is something that might happen, you might see more commonly in civil aviation. But for a major commercial airliner to not have its landing gear down coming into an international airport, I mean, that is something that is heart stopping, I'll paraphrase the conversation that I had with Pete Muntean, and something that may be the nexus point of the investigation. So again, for viewers joining us, you know, in the middle of this conversation, it is a Boeing 737-800. So that could widen the international investigation into bringing people from the United States, bringing people from Washington state, Boeing headquarters in Chicago, and outside of Seattle here to this corner of the world, figure out what exactly happened to make sure that something like this does not repeat in another Boeing 737-800, God forbid.

So still a lot of unanswered questions. But the name of the game here is just seeing if any more miracles can be pulled off if there can be a third, a fourth or another survivor pulled from this huge wreckage scene, Jessica.

DEAN: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And again, I just want to underscore what I think you were saying earlier. At this point, two Thai nationals on that plane and the arrest -- the rest of them appear to be South Koreans, right?

VALERIO: Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yup, you got it.

DEAN: All right. Okay. All right. Mike Valerio, thank you so much for that reporting. Again, you're following breaking news where we have 47 people dead in a plane crash at the Muan Airport in South Korea. This happened roughly three hours ago. It was a Boeing 737. Unclear now what happened. We know two people survived. They're going to continue to try to find more people alive. Those rescues are ongoing. We're going to continue to follow this story. You can stay with CNN for the latest coverage.

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