Death toll in South Korea plane crash rises to 179

Good morning. Today I’ll be covering:

• South Korea’s plane crash

• The death of former US president Jimmy Carter

• Detentions of Chinese executives

• The most popular stories of the year

One hundred and seventy-nine people were killed yesterday morning as a South Korean passenger jet crashed and burst into flames on landing, according to local authorities. The accident was one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The Jeju Air flight was returning from Bangkok with 181 people on board when it failed to deploy its landing gear. It skid down the runway before it struck a wall and was engulfed in fire at Muan international airport in the country’s south.

Two crew members were rescued from the aircraft’s tail, according to the national fire agency, but all the other people on the flight were later confirmed to have been killed, officials told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok — who assumed office on Friday after his predecessor was impeached by parliament — vowed to “dig into the cause [and] and take steps to prevent any recurrence of similar accidents”.

“This is a grave situation. We will do our utmost to cope with the damage,” he said. The crash was the worst commercial aviation disaster since 2018.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Day of mourning: South Korea will begin its second of seven days of national mourning for victims of the Jeju Air crash.

• ‘Black moon’ phenomenon: The night sky will be primed for ideal stargazing conditions tonight amid the rare occurrence of a second new moon in a single calendar month.

Five more top stories

1. Jimmy Carter, the 39th US president who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, has died, the Carter Center said on Sunday. Carter was the longest-living former president in US history, having celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1. Read more about his life and legacy.

2. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev called on Russia to “admit its guilt” in the passenger plane crash on Christmas Day, and demanded Moscow compensate the families of the 38 people killed. President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russian air defences were working in the same area that the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane was flying, but apologised only for the fact that the incident occurred “in Russian airspace”.

3. Asia-Pacific infrastructure should drive more deals in 2025 despite economic challenges for the region, Macquarie said after the Australian asset manager wrapped up a A$24bn (US$15bn) data centre sale earlier this month. The FT’s Nic Fildes reports on what the co-head of Macquarie’s infrastructure division in Asia-Pacific is expecting for 2025.

4. Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said it could take up to four years for the country to hold its first elections after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Here’s what we know about a possible timeline for key phases of the country’s political transition.

5. An Israeli military raid has put the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of service, exacerbating a deepening humanitarian crisis in the enclave, according to the UN’s health agency. The attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital came as Israel stepped up an offensive in the area.

News in-depth

Business executives at more than 80 China-listed companies were detained by local authorities in 2024, according to an FT analysis. Some of the detentions appeared to have little or no legal basis. Now, Beijing is trying to curb the “shakedowns” that are fuelling anxiety among entrepreneurs and risk curbing economic growth.

We’re also reading…

Chart of the day

Last year there were dozens of dire warnings about generative artificial intelligence’s impact on 2024’s bumper crop of global elections. Experts now believe there is little evidence that AI disinformation was as widespread or impactful as was feared.

The most popular stories of 2024

It’s time to highlight what readers clicked on most across FT.com this year. The US presidential election result page landed in the top spot. You can still use our map to explore which states flipped from blue to red, and how results compared to 2020.

And outside the political realm, Claer Barrett’s piece on how to protect your financial data as phone theft surges was the most popular. Her sage advice is as useful now as it was when the story first published in May.