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Jeju Air crash black boxes stopped recording before flight crashed: South Korea
South Korean and United States investigators are still probing the cause of the crash of Jeju Air flight 2216.
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Firefighters and recovery teams work at the scene where a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 series aircraft crashed and burst into flames at Muan International Airport in Muan, some 288 kilometers southwest of Seoul on Dec. 30, 2024. (AFP/Jung Yeon-je)
T
he black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the crashed Jeju Air flight that left 179 people dead stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, South Korea's transport ministry said on Saturday.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan, South Korea, on Dec. 29, 2024 carrying 181 passengers and crew when it belly-landed at the Muan airport and exploded in a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier.
"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 localizer," the transport ministry said in a statement, referring to the two recording devices.
The localizer 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.
South Korean and United States investigators are still probing the cause of the crash of Jeju Air flight 2216, which prompted a national outpouring of mourning with memorials set up across the country.
Investigators have pointed to a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier as possible issues.
The pilot warned of a bird strike before pulling out of a first landing, then crashed on a second attempt when the landing gear did not emerge.
