The two teenagers, believed to be the first-ever fatalities in a Boeing 777 crash, were said to be on a school trip with 27 other students and five teachers seated at the back of the plane when it crashed and burst into flames.
The other 305 people on board the Asiana Airlines Flight 214, from South Korea's capital, Seoul, survived with 181 suffering injuries. Passengers and crew escaped down emergency slides as the plane burst into flames.
An investigation has been launched into what caused the crash, but the airline has claimed there were no mechanical problems.
‘Currently we understand that there were no engine or mechanical problems,’ Asiana chief executive Yoon Young-Doo told a news conference in Seoul.
Passenger Ben Levy said there had been no warning of problems before the crash. ‘It happened in a flash, nobody was worried about anything, but once the aircraft crashed, ‘there was chaos, disbelief, screaming,’ he said.
‘My seat had been pushed to the floor, it was a mess everywhere,’ he continued. Nevertheless, people ‘calmed down pretty quickly’ and evacuated the plane without pushing or stepping on each other.
Eye Witness Ki Siadatan, who saw the crash from his balcony overlooking the airport, said the plane ‘looked out of control’ before it crash-landed.
‘We heard a “boom” and saw the plane disappear into a cloud of dust and smoke,’ he told the BBC. ‘There was then a second explosion.’