According to South Korea’s transport ministry on Saturday, the black boxes containing the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people stopped recording four minutes before to the catastrophe.
On December 29, a Boeing 737-800 carrying 181 passengers and staff members belly-landed at the Muan airport and slammed into a concrete barrier, exploding in a flame. The flight was from Thailand to Muan, South Korea.
“The analysis revealed that both the CVR and FDR data were not recorded during the four minutes leading up to the aircraft’s collision with the localiser,” the transport ministry said in a statement, referring to the two recording devices.
The localiser is a barrier at the end of the runway that helps with aircraft landings and was blamed for exacerbating the crash’s severity.
“Plans are in place to investigate the cause of the data loss during the ongoing accident investigation,” the statement added.
The cause of the disaster of Jeju Air flight 2216, which sparked a nationwide outpouring of grief with memorials erected around the nation, is still being investigated by South Korean and US officials.
Investigators have identified the runway barrier, malfunctioning landing gear, and a bird hit as potential causes.
The pilot pulled out of a first landing after warning of a bird hit, and when the landing gear failed to emerge on a second attempt, the aircraft crashed.
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