At least 47 people died at Muan Airport

A plane carrying 181 passengers crashed at an airport in South Korea, killing at least 47 people, the country’s fire department said.

The plane ran off the runway and crashed into a wall at the Muan International Airport in the southwest of the country, Yonhap news agency reported.

The Jeju Air plane, which was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, was reportedly flying back from Bangkok in Thailand and the accident happened while it was sitting.

Two people have been found alive so far and rescue operations are still ongoing, a fire official told Reuters.

Emergency services were trying to rescue people in the tail of the plane, said an airline official.

The passengers on the boat included 173 South Koreans and two Thais, Yonhap reported.

The cause of the accident was not yet known, but local media reported that it may have been caused by birds caught in the aircraft’s systems.

Unconfirmed footage uploaded to social media shows the plane skidding off the runway and crashing into a wall, before part of it burst into flames.

Some pictures show a huge plume of black smoke rising into the sky.

One flight attendant and one passenger have been rescued so far, South Korea’s fire service said in a statement, adding that 80 firefighters and more than 30 fire trucks had been deployed to the crash site.