2024 Ends with Tragic Air Crashes Involving Commercial Airlines, 289 Fatalities Recorded Since January

Chinedu Eze with agency reports

Tragic air accidents that killed 217 souls in last week of December alone have marred the joy at the twilight of 2024, and marked it as the year that recorded one of the highest deaths, involving commercial airliners in recent times with a total of about 289 fatalities since January.

This is coming as Air Canada flight narrowly avoided disaster, when its landing gear malfunctioned after the South Korean tragic crash.

The incident caused the plane to skid along the runway and catch fire at Halifax Stanfield International Airport. There were no fatalities.

According to media reports, the emergency occurred at approximately 9:30pm local time (December 29, 2024), with the airport temporarily closing one of its runways while emergency services responded.

Despite the alarming circumstances, there were no immediate reports of fatalities. However, passengers were left shaken by the terrifying ordeal.

On December 25, 2024, an Azerbaijani airliner carrying 67 people crashed in southwestern Kazakhstan, killing at least 38, who were on board, according to Kazakh authorities.

In a sprawling rescue operation, 29 survivors including two children were pulled from the wreckage near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said, adding that 11 were in critical condition.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 was travelling from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny in the Russian region of Chechnya before it made an emergency landing approximately 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau, the carrier said.

Footage from the crash site captured the moment dazed survivors emerged from the charred plane. All of the survivors were taken to hospitals, Kazakh authorities said earlier.

But the most tragic crash happened in South Korea, where a total of 179 people — 85 women, 84 men and 10 others whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable — died in a plane crash involving Boeing 737-800 on Sunday, December 29, 2024.

The Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 from Bangkok crashed while attempting to land at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea on December 29, 2024.

Footage showed the Boeing 737-800 “belly landing” without landing gear and sliding at high speed along the runway before hitting the wall.

Among the 177 bodies found, officials have so far identified 88 of them, the fire agency said. The passengers were predominantly South Korean, as well as two Thai nationals.

Also, on December 29, 2024, Sky News reported that one person was confirmed dead and another fighting for life in a hospital following a light plane crash on the northern NSW coast, Australia.

In a statement, NSW Police said the aircraft was taking off from a private airfield on Palmer’s Island when it crashed. Only two people were on board at the time.

Emergency services rushed to the airfield at around 11:30am and arrived to find the pilot, believed to be a man in his 60s, dead at the scene

Overall, in 2024, there have been 10 air accidents as at December 30, 2024, and five out of the eight recorded 288 fatalities, including South Korea Jeju Air crash on December 29 that killed 179 souls on board; Air Canada accident at Halifax International Airport and the light plane crash, New South Wales, North Coast Australia.

On December 25, Azerbaijan Airlines crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 souls on board and on November 25, 2024, a DHL cargo flight crashed in Vilnius, Lithuania, recording one fatality.

On August 9, 2024, Brazilian airline, Voepass Linhas Aereas crashed at Vinhedo, Brazil, killing 62 persons on board and on January 2, 2024, Japanese Airlines recorded an accident in Tokyo and about five persons were killed on ground.

On May 9, 2024, Boeing 737 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, but no fatalities.

On May 5, 2024, a Boeing 737-300 cargo plane, operated by Serve Air, suffered a runway excursion and nose gear collapse after landing on runway 07 at Lubumbashi International Airport, D.R. Congo with zero fatalities and on March 31, 2024, Safe Air Company flight, a Boeing 727-200 crashed at Malakai, South Sudan with zero fatalities.

Meanwhile, aviation expert had been questioning how much impact a potential bird strike, cited by authorities, could have had in bringing down the Jeju Air flight.

The apparent absence of landing gear, the timing of the twin-engine Boeing 737-800’s belly landing at Muan International Airport and the reports of a possible bird strike all raised questions that could not yet be answered.

“At this point, there are a lot more questions than we have answers. Why was the plane going so fast? Why were the flaps not open? Why was the landing gear not down?” said Gregory Alegi, an aviation expert and former teacher at Italy’s air force academy, according to The Sunday Morning Herald.

Reports indicate that South Korean officials were investigating the crash of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, including the impact of a potential bird strike and the weather.

Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan said the runway’s 2800-metre length was not a contributing factor, and that walls at the ends were built to industry standards.

South Korea’s acting President, Choi Sang-mok, has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation system once the recovery work on the Jeju Air crash was done.

Since 2020, the 2024 fatalities in air accidents involving commercial airlines may only be surpassed by that of 2022 with about 358 civilian deaths.