The black boxes of the Boeing jetliner that crashed in South Korea last month stopped recording about four minutes before the crash, South Korean officials said Saturday, possibly complicating investigations into the cause of the disaster. killed 179 people.
After analyzing the devices, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that both the flight data and cockpit voice recorders stopped working about four minutes before the crash, the Department of Transportation said South Korea.
The Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air skidded off a runway in the South Korean city of Muan on December 29 after its landing gear failed, crashing into a concrete structure and burst into flames, killing all but two of the 181 people on board.
After initially analyzing the black boxes, South Korean officials sent the devices to the NTSB for a closer examination when they discovered that some of the data was missing. The transport ministry said it was not immediately clear why the machines did not record data in the last four minutes.
“Data from the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and FDR (flight data recorder) are essential in accident investigations, but such investigations are carried out through the examination and analysis of various sources of information, and we intend to do our best to determine the cause. about the accident,” the ministry said in a statement.
Following the crash of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 that skidded off the runway in South Korea on Sunday, an investigation is underway to find out what happened. One of the main questions of the investigation, according to the former chief engineer failure analyst Eugen Abramovici, is why the plane did not use the landing gear during the crisis.
South Korean investigators have said air traffic controllers warned the pilot of possible bird strikes two minutes before the plane sent out a distress signal confirming a bird strike. had occurred, after which the pilot attempted an emergency landing.
South Korean officials have also pledged to improve airport safety after experts linked the high death toll to Muan airport's localizer system, the structure the plane hit when it crashed.
The localizer, a set of antennas designed to guide aircraft during landing, was in a dirt-covered concrete structure on a raised embankment. This has raised questions about whether the structure should be built with lighter materials that break more easily on impact.
South Korea's acting president, Choi Sang-mok, ordered emergency safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country's airlines after the Jeju Air crash near all passengers on board were killed.
