At least 62 people were killed when a passenger plane veered off the runway and crashed at an airport in the South Korean city of Muan, the country’s National Fire Agency said.

The accident occurred on Sunday at 9.03am local time (00:03 GMT) as the Jeju Air flight 7C2216, carrying 175 passengers and six crew from the Thai capital Bangkok, was landing at Muan International Airport in the southwest of the country.

The National Fire Agency confirmed that 62 people have been killed, with the rescue operation ongoing.

The agency said the fire was almost put out but rescue workers were still trying to pull people from the wreckage of the plane.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Seoul in South Korea, said a major rescue operation was under way at the airport, which is located about 289km (179 miles) southwest of the capital.

“This was a flight returning overnight from Bangkok. There seems to have been some kind of malfunction with the landing gear and images which have been on the media here do appear to show the plane landing on its belly, skidding along the runway, followed then by a huge explosion,” McBride said.

“Eyewitness accounts have talked then about a series of explosions and certainly images that we have been seeing have shown a catastrophic fire,” he said.

The plane, a Boeing 737-800 jet, was reported to be carrying two Thai passengers and the rest were believed to be South Koreans.

One photo shared by local media showed thick clouds of black smoke coming out of the plane. Another showed the tail section of the jet engulfed in flames on what appeared to be the side of the runway, with firefighters and emergency vehicles nearby.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports that the crash is believed to have been caused by “contact with birds, resulting in malfunctioning landing gear” as the plane attempted to land at the airport.

South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok, meanwhile, ordered “all-out efforts for rescue operations” at Muan airport.

“All related agencies… must mobilise all available resources to save the personnel,” he told officials in a statement.

The crash is the first fatal accident in the history of Jeju Air, one of South Korea’s largest low-cost carriers, which was set up in 2005.

In August 2007, a Bombardier Q400 operated by Jeju Air carrying 74 passengers came off the runway due to strong winds at the southern Busan-Gimhae airport, resulting in a dozen injuries.

Experts say that South Korea’s aviation industry has a solid track record for safety.