THREE passengers were injured when flames ripped through a South Korean commercial plane today, forcing the evacuation of all 176 people on board.

An Air Busan plane burst into flames on the runway at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, weeks after the country’s worst ever air disaster.

Emergency services flooded onto the tarmac to battle the flames with jets of water – and are continuing their attempts to control the fire.

Dramatic footage posted to social media shows flames licking into the sky from the planes fuselage.

Other videos show black and orange smoke billowing from the aircraft with the top completely caved in.

All 169 passengers and seven members of crew fled down the emergency inflatable slides.

Emergency services said the fire started in the plane’s tail at around 10:26pm local time – just moments before take off – and firefighters were on scene by 10:34pm.

It then rapidly spready to the main body of the aircraft.

The Air Bus A321 plane had been bound for Hong Kong from Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city.

Air Busan is a budget branch of Asiana Airlines, which was acquired by Korean Air in December 2024.

Today’s inferno comes a month after South Korea’s deadliest air disaster, when a Jeju Air plane coming back from Bangkok crashed on MuanAirport’s runway as it made an emergency belly landing.

The plane in skidded into a concrete structure near the tarmac, killing all but two of the 181 people and crew members on board.

The official death toll was 179 – with all 175 passengers killed, four crew killed, and two crew rescued.

The youngest victim was tragically a three-year-old – with most passengers families returning home from a package holiday to Thailand.

Exactly what caused the disaster remains a mystery but footage showed the single-aisle plane strike a bird with its right engine as it came in to land in the southwestern city of Muan.

Investigators have found evidence of feathers and blood on the plane’s wreckage.

The flight data and voice tapes stopped recording about four minutes before the deadly crash.

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