At least  179 people have been killed when a passenger plane caught fire after skidding off a runway and slamming into a concrete fence at a South Korean airport.

Two crew members were rescued after the accident that occurred on Sunday at 9:03am local time (00:03 GMT).

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the plane – a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet – was returning from Bangkok and its passengers included two Thai nationals.

The National Fire Agency said rescuers raced to pull people out of the Jeju Air plane carrying 181 passengers at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290km (180 miles) south of Seoul.

The fire agency deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire, it said.

At least 179 people — 85 women, 84 men and 10 others whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable – died in the fire, the fire agency said.

The death toll is expected to rise further as the rest of the passengers on board the plane remain missing about six hours after the incident – making it one of the worst airline disasters to hit South Korea.

Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the airport.

Other local TV stations aired footage showing thick pillars of black smoke from the plane engulfed in flames.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that rescue workers are continuing to search for bodies scattered by the crash impact.

The plane was destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage, he said.

Workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds that caused mechanical problems, Lee said.

Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan separately told reporters that government investigators arrived at the site to investigate the cause of the crash and fire.