Authorities in South Korea were working on Monday to confirm the identities of more than three dozen of the 179 passengers who were killed when a Jeju Air plane crashed.

Maps and diagrams break down the final minutes of Jeju Air flight 2216 that ended in the deadliest air crash in South Korea.

Several passenger plane crashes have occurred worldwide this year, including a Wednesday morning Azerbaijan Airlines wreck that has left dozens feared dead.

The deadliest accident in aviation history occurred in 1977, when two Boeing 747 jumbo jets collided on a foggy runway on the Spanish island of Tenerife, killing 583 of the 644 people on board the planes. Spanish investigators blamed the captain of the KLM 747 for taking off without clearance from air traffic controllers.

The acting president ordered an emergency safety inspection of the airline operation system as investigators worked to identify victims and find out what caused the country's deadliest air disaster.

The Jeju Air 737 crash in South Korea on Sunday that killed all but two of the people onboard was in many respects as baffling as it was tragic. Given the scant information currently available, it’s hard even to piece together a coherent picture of what happened.

Families wept and wailed as officials read off the names of the victims who died on Sunday, Dec. 29 at Muan International Airport, where the crash occurred, according to CNN and NBC News. Only two people, a pair of flight attendants, are said to have survived the crash, which was flying in from Bangkok, Thailand.

A handful of the nearly 5,000 Boeing 737-800 aircraft produced have been involved in fatal crashes, but the jet is generally reliable and safe.

The U.S. is sending investigators to South Korea to probe the deadly plane crash that killed 178 people as officials comb through over 600 body parts.

Investigators will try to determine what happened on the plane, including how its mechanical systems were functioning and which actions the pilots took.

A flight attendant, one of just two survivors of the Jeju Air plane crash in South Korea on Sunday that killed 179 people, is awake and talking, a hospital official said.