Jeju Air jet's 'black boxes' stopped recording 4 minutes before crash, says South Korea

SEOUL - The flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec 29, 2024, stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea's Muan airport, said the Transport Ministry on Jan 11.

The authorities investigating the disaster that killed 179 people - the worst aviation accident on South Korean soil - plan to analyse what caused the "black boxes" to stop recording, the ministry said in a statement.

The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and when data was found to be missing, it was sent to a US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, the ministry added.

The damaged flight data recorder was taken to the US for analysis in co-operation with the US safety regulator, the ministry had said.

Jeju Air Flight 2216, which departed the Thai capital Bangkok for Muan in south-western South Korea, belly-landed and overshot the regional airport's runway, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment.

The pilots told air traffic control that the aircraft had suffered a bird strike and declared an emergency about four minutes before it crashed into the embankment, exploding in flames.

Two injured crew members, sitting in the tail section, were rescued.

Two minutes before the Mayday emergency call, air traffic control gave caution for "bird activity".

Declaring an emergency, the pilots abandoned the landing attempt and initiated a go-around.

But instead of making a full go-about, the budget airline's Boeing 737-800 jet took a sharp turn and approached the airport's single runway from the opposite end, crash-landing without its landing gear deployed.

Mr Sim Jai-dong, a former Transport Ministry accident investigator, said the discovery of missing data from the crucial final minutes was surprising and suggests that all power including backup may have been cut, which is rare.

The Transport Ministry said other data available would be used in the investigation and that it would ensure the probe is transparent and that information is shared with the victims' families.

Some members of the victims' families have said the ministry should not be taking the lead in the investigation but that it should involve independent experts, including those recommended by the families.

The investigation of the crash has also focused on the embankment, which was designed to prop up a "localiser" system used to assist in aircraft landing, including why it was built with such rigid material and so close to the end of the runway.

ALSO READ: South Korea police search Jeju Air, airport operator over fatal plane crash