Black boxes from the South Korean plane crash failed to record the last 4 minutes, officials said
The black boxes of the Boeing plane that crashed in South Korea last month stopped recording about four minutes before the crash, South Korean officials said Saturday, potentially complicating the investigation into the cause of the disaster that killed 179 people.
After analyzing the equipment, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that both the flight’s data and cockpit voice recorders stopped working about four minutes before the crash, South Korea’s Ministry of Transportation said.
A Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air skidded off the runway in the South Korean city of Muan on December 29 after its landing gear failed, crashed into a concrete structure and burst into flames, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. they are riding.
After initially analyzing the black boxes, South Korean officials sent the devices to the NTSB for further testing when they discovered that some information was missing. The Department of Transport said it was not clear why the machines failed to record data four minutes ago.
“Information from CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and FDR (flight data recorder) is important in accident investigation, but this investigation is done by testing and analyzing various sources of information, and we plan to do our best to find the cause. by accident,” said the Ministry in a statement.
After a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 crashed on a runway in South Korea on Sunday, an investigation is ongoing to determine what happened. One of the main questions of the investigation, according to the analyst of the failure of the chief engineer Eugen Abramovici, is why the plane did not install its landing gear during the emergency landing.
South Korean investigators said air traffic controllers warned the pilot about a possible bird strike two minutes before the plane issued an announcement confirming a bird strike, after which the pilot attempted to make an emergency landing.
South Korean officials have also promised to improve airport security after experts linked the high death toll to the Muan airport system, the building hit by the plane when it crashed.
The localizer, a set of antennas designed to guide the aircraft during landing, was housed in a dirt-covered concrete structure on a high ridge. This raised questions about whether the building should have been built with light materials that would break easily upon impact.
South Korea’s Vice President, Choi Sang-mok, has ordered an emergency safety inspection of all Boeing 737-800 planes used by the country’s airlines after the Jeju Air crash that killed almost all passengers on board.
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