South Korean navy patrol plane crashes in country's south, killing 4

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean navy plane crashed during a training flight on Thursday, killing all four crew members on board, the navy said.

The P-3 patrol plane took off from its base in the southeastern city of Pohang at 1:43 p.m. and crashed due to unknown reasons, the navy said in a statement. It said it had identified the bodies of the four crew members and was in the process of recovering them.

There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties on the ground. The navy set up a task force to investigate the crash and temporarily grounded its P-3s.

An emergency office in Pohang said that rescuers and fire trucks were dispatched to the site after receiving reports from residents that an aircraft crashed on a hill near an apartment complex and caused a fire.

Photos showed firefighters and emergency vehicles near the crash site with flames flickering as a smoke engulfed trees. Fire crews sprayed water on what appeared to be the aircraft debris.

In December, a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed at Muan International Airport in southern South Korea, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. It was one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history.