Jeju Air passenger plane registrar crashed killed 179 people last month, breaking the record in the last four minutes, South Korean officials said Saturday in a significant setback for investigators.
The information extracted from the so-called black box, which consists of the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, is very important in the investigation of aviation accidents in general. South Korean officials, working with the US National Transportation Safety Board, of the plane's flight data the last four minutesthis would be especially important in an accident.
But on Saturday, South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it had stopped recording the Boeing 737-800's black box for reasons yet to be determined.
“We plan to investigate why the data was not recorded,” the ministry said. He also said other data and analysis will be used to try to understand what happened in last month's disaster.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216 from Bangkok with 181 people on board was preparing to land at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea at 8:59 a.m. on December 29 when its pilot announced “Mayday, mayday, mayday.” and “Bird strikes, bird strikes,” according to officials. The pilot also told the air traffic control tower that he was “going around,” meaning he would abort the first landing attempt and circle the air for the second landing.
But apparently he didn't have time to come full circle. Instead, the aircraft approached the runway from the opposite direction and landed on its belly without landing gear. Unable to control his speed, he overshot the runway. Four minutes after the Mayday emergency report, the aircraft crashed into a concrete structure at the southern end of the runway and burst into flames.
The main question was: What happened in those four minutes?
“Black box data is very important in the investigation,” said Hwang Ho-won, chairman of the Korea Aviation Safety Association. “If the investigators don't have that, it's going to be a serious problem for them.”
The missing information adds mystery to the crash, the worst aviation disaster in South Korea and the world's deadliest since Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018, which killed all 189 people on board.
Mr. Hwang said black boxes can be damaged by impact, fire or prolonged immersion in deep water. But it was difficult to explain how the Jeju Air black box did not register for the last four minutes, he said
He said investigators could reconstruct part of the conversation inside the cockpit based on interviews with control tower officials. Mr. Hwang said radar and other data showed the plane was trying to gain altitude and rushed to land after reporting a bird strike.
Investigators said they were looking into various possibilities, including that the plane lost one or both of its 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 are crew members who were found with injuries in the tail section of the plane.
The disaster has sparked national mourning in South Korea, with memorials being erected, and comes at a time when the country is also facing a crisis. political crisis It started with President Yoon Suk Yeol imposing a short-term martial law and impeaching him by parliament.