The record-breaking Jeju Air passenger plane that crashed last month, killing 179 people, stopped recording four minutes ago, South Korean officials said Saturday, delaying investigators.
Data extracted from the so-called black box, which includes the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, is often important in the investigation of plane accidents. South Korean officials, who have been working with the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States, said the flight information of the last four minutes of the flight will be very important in the accident.
But on Saturday, South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that for undetermined reasons, the Boeing 737-800’s black box had stopped recording at that time.
“We plan to investigate why the information was not recorded,” the department said in a news release. It also said that more information and analysis will be used to try to understand what happened in last month’s disaster.
Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, which departed from Bangkok with 181 people on board, was preparing to arrive at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea at 8:59 a.m. on Dec. 29 when its driver reported, “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” and, “A bird is calling, a bird,” according to officials. The pilot also told the air traffic control tower that he was “circling,” meaning he would abort his first attempt to land and go around in the air to prepare for the second.
But apparently he didn’t have enough time to make a full circle. Instead, the plane approached the runway from the other side and landed on its stomach, without landing gear. Apparently unable to control its speed, it overshot the runway. Four minutes after the Mayday emergency report, the plane crashed into a concrete structure at the southern end of the runway and burst into flames.
The important question has always been: What happened during those four minutes?
“The details of the black box are important for the investigation,” said Hwang Ho-won, chairman of the Korea Association for Aviation Security. “If the investigators don’t have it, it will cause them a big problem.”
Missing details add to the mystery of the crash, which was South Korea’s worst aviation disaster and the world’s deadliest since Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018, when all 189 people died.
Mr Hwang said black boxes can be damaged by impact, fire or prolonged exposure to deep water. But it was difficult to explain how Jeju Air’s black box failed to record in its last four minutes, he said
He said investigators may be able to reconstruct part of the conversation inside the police room by talking to control tower officials. Radar and other information suggested that the plane tried but failed to take off after reporting that the birds hit the ground, said Mr Hwang.
Investigators said they were looking into various factors including whether the plane lost one or both engines in the final minutes.
Most of the 179 people who died were South Koreans returning home from a Christmas holiday in Thailand. The two survivors were crew members who were found with injuries to the tail section of the plane.
The tragedy prompted a national outpouring of grief, memorials were erected across South Korea, and came as the country grappled with a political crisis caused by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s temporary imposition of martial law and his impeachment by Parliament.
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