The black box of the South Korean plane stopped working four minutes before the accident

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the Jeju Air plane that crashed on December 29 stopped recording about four minutes before the plane hit a concrete structure at Muan airport in South Korea. South, the Ministry of Transportation said on Saturday.

Authorities investigating the disaster that killed 179 people, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyze what caused the “black boxes” to stop recording, the ministry said in a statement. The voice recorder was initially analyzed in South Korea and, when data was found to be missing, it was sent to a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, the ministry said. The damaged flight data recorder was brought to the United States for analysis in cooperation with the US safety regulator, the ministry added.

Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, which departed from the Thai capital, Bangkok, bound for Muan, southwestern South Korea, landed on its side and skidded off the runway at the regional airport, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment. .

The pilots reported to air traffic control that the plane had suffered a bird strike and declared an emergency about four minutes before it crashed into the embankment and exploded in flames. Two injured crew members, who were sitting in the tail section, were rescued.

Without landing gear deployed

Two minutes before the emergency signal was given, air traffic control issued a warning for “bird activity.” After declaring the emergency, the pilots abandoned the landing attempt and began a missed approach maneuver.

But instead of making an emergency landing, the low-cost airline’s Boeing 737-800 made a sharp turn and approached the airport’s only runway from the opposite end, making an emergency landing without the landing gear deployed. .

The Ministry promises a transparent investigation

Sim Jai-dong, a former accident investigator at the Ministry of Transport, said the discovery of the missing data from the crucial final minutes was surprising and suggests that all power, including backup power, may have been cut, which is queer.

The Transport Ministry said other available data would be used in the investigation and that it would ensure the investigation was transparent and that information was shared with victims’ families.

Some relatives of the victims have said that the Transport Ministry should not take the lead in the investigation, but should involve independent experts, including those recommended by the families.

The accident investigation has also focused on the embankment, which was designed to support the “localizer” system used to help aircraft land, including why it was constructed of such a rigid material and so close to the end of the runway.