A passenger plane carrying 181 people crash-landed on its belly on Sunday at an airport in South Korea, hitting a barrier and exploding into an orange fireball in the worst aviation disaster in the country in almost three decades.

周日，一架载有181名乘客的客机在韩国一个机场机腹着地，撞上护栏并爆炸形成橙色火球，这是韩国近30年来最严重的空难。

Nearly all of the people on board the plane, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air, were killed, officials said.

官员称，这架济州航空波音737-800飞机上几乎所有人员均已遇难。

The plane, Flight 7C2216, had taken off from Bangkok and was landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea’s southwest when it crashed around 9 a.m. local time. Officials said the plane had broken into so many pieces that only its tail was identifiable.

这架飞机航班编号为7C2216，从曼谷起飞，韩国当地时间上午9点左右在该国西南部的务安国际机场降落时坠毁。官员称，飞机已撞成碎片，只有机尾尚完整。

The plane was carrying 175 passengers and six crew members. As of Sunday evening, the official death toll had risen to 179, according to the National Fire Agency. Only two people — crew members who were rescued from the aircraft’s tail section — survived.

飞机上载有175名乘客和六名机组人员。据韩国消防厅称，截至周日晚间，官方公布的死亡人数已升至179人。只有两人幸存，他们是从飞机尾部被救出的机组人员。

What caused the crash?

事故原因是什么？

Officials were investigating why the landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned, and whether birds had struck the plane or if bad weather had been a factor, Ju Jong-wan, a director of aviation policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said at a news briefing.

国土交通部航空政策室室长朱钟完（音）在新闻发布会上表示，官员们正在调查飞机起落架为何似乎出现故障，以及飞机是否受到鸟撞或恶劣天气的影响。

As the plane was landing, he said, the airport warned it about a potential bird strike. The plane issued a mayday alert shortly after, he said, then crash-landed.

他说，飞机降落时，机场曾发出鸟情预警。他说，飞机不久后发出求救信号，然后坠毁。

The muddy tidal flats near Muan International Airport and much of the west coast of the Korean Peninsula are favorite resting places for migrant birds. Photographs in local media showed flocks of birds flying near the airport​ on Sunday.

务安国际机场附近和朝鲜半岛西海岸大部分地区的滩涂是候鸟最喜欢的栖息地。当地媒体发布的照片显示，周日机场附近有成群的鸟在飞翔。

人们在务安国际机场等待关于空难遇难者的消息。

Footage broadcast by MBC-TV showed one of the engines briefly emitting flames as it neared the airport.

MBC-TV播放的画面显示，飞机的一台发动机在进近阶段曾短暂冒火。

Kim E-bae, the chief executive of Jeju Air, said at a news conference that the plane had no history of accidents, and also had no problems during routine maintenance checks.

济州航空首席执行官金利培在新闻发布会上表示，这架飞机之前没有发生过事故，在例行维护检查中也没有出现任何问题。

The plane’s landing gear appeared not to have dropped down from underneath, and the flaps on its wings apparently were not activated for landing, said Keith Tonkin, the managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting company in Brisbane, Australia, who reviewed video of the crash.

位于澳大利亚布里斯班的航空咨询公司Aviation Projects的执行董事基思·汤金在查看了坠机视频后表示，飞机下方的起落架似乎并未打开，也未放襟翼。

“The aircraft was essentially in a flying configuration,” he said. That meant the plane was most likely “flying faster than it would normally be in a landing situation.”

“飞机基本上处于飞行状态，”他说。这意味着飞机很可能“比正常着陆状态下的飞行速度更快”。

Crashes are often caused by multiple factors, which can take years to uncover through in-depth investigations.

坠机事故往往由多种因素引发，可能需要花费数年时间、通过深入调查才能查明。

This was South Korea’s worst passenger plane crash in decades.

这是韩国几十年来最严重的空难事故。

Sunday’s crash was the worst aviation accident involving a South Korean airline since a Korean Air jet slammed into a hill in Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, in 1997. That crash killed 229 of the 254 people onboard.

周日的空难事故是自1997年大韩航空客机撞上西太平洋美国领土关岛的一座山丘以来，韩国航空公司发生的最严重航空事故。1997年的那次空难造成机上254名乘客和机组人员中的229人死亡。

It also appeared to have been the first fatal crash for Jeju Air, a low-cost South Korean carrier that was established in 2005 and flies to dozens of countries in Asia.

这似乎也是济州航空发生的首起致命空难事故。济州航空是韩国的一家低成本航空公司，成立于2005年，航班飞往亚洲数十个国家。

Two days earlier, the plane involved in the crash had been flying to Beijing from Jeju, a Korean island south of the mainland, when it had to divert to Seoul, according to the flight tracking site Flightradar24. The diversion was caused by a medical, not technical, emergency onboard, according to the Incheon International Airport Police Corps.

据航班追踪网站Flightradar24报道，两天前，坠机的这架飞机执飞济州岛到北京途中备降首尔。济州岛是韩国本土南部的一个岛屿。仁川国际机场警队表示，备降是因为机上出现医疗紧急情况，而非技术紧急情况。

After that, the plane flew 10 flights between South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, China, Taiwan and Thailand without incident, according to Flightradar24, before Sunday morning’s crash.

据Flightradar24称，在那次备降后，直至周日早间空难之前，这架飞机在韩国、马来西亚、日本、中国、台湾和泰国之间飞行了10次，没有出现任何事故。

周日，首尔，济州航空首席执行官（中右）和其他公司高管在举行新闻发布会之前鞠躬致歉。

In 2021, the South Korean authorities investigated Jeju Air after one of its planes flew despite having a defect, according to reports in the domestic news media. A tip of one of its wings was damaged during a landing, but the crew failed to notice the damage and the plane took off again, The Korea Herald reported.

据韩国国内新闻媒体报道，2021年，济州航空曾因一架飞机在出现状况后仍继续执飞而受到韩国当局的调查。据《韩国先驱报》报道，飞机当时在着陆时一侧机翼尖端受损，但机组人员没有注意到出了问题，飞机再次起飞。

Last year, the airline received a safety grade of A, or “very good,” from the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s annual review of domestic airlines. The score is based on the number of accidents or near accidents. The highest grade any airline got that year was A++, and the lowest was B+.

去年，在韩国国土交通部对国内航空公司的年度评估中，该航空公司的安全等级为A，即“非常好”。该评分基于事故或险些发生事故的次数。当年航空公司获得的最高等级为A++，最低为B+。

The Boeing 737-800 has a strong safety record.

波音737-800安全记录良好。

The Jeju Air plane that crashed was a Boeing 737-800, a model that is used widely around the world and is a staple of low-cost airlines. There are about 4,400 Boeing 737-800s in service globally, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. That’s about 15 percent of the passenger planes operating globally.

坠毁的济州航空客机为波音737-800型飞机，该机型在全球广泛使用，是低成本航空公司的主要机型。据航空数据提供商Cirium称，全球目前共有约4400架波音737-800飞机在役，约占全球运营客机的15%。

“The plane in question is very safe and has a good safety record,” said Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of engineering at the University of Southern California who has studied the safety history of the Boeing 737 line.

南加州大学工程学教授纳吉梅丁·梅什卡蒂研究过波音737系列的安全历史，他说：“这架飞机很安全，安全记录良好。”

It was possible that the plane’s landing gear did not deploy because of a “maintenance” problem, he said, though he said he would not rule out a bird strike as a cause.

他说，飞机起落架可能因为“维护”问题而未能打开，但他表示，不排除鸟撞的可能性。

Mr. Meshkati said that the Boeing 737-800’s landing gear was well designed and had a history of reliability.

梅什卡蒂表示，波音737-800的起落架设计精良，一直相当可靠。