By Hyunjoo Jin and Jack Kim, for Reuters
On 29 December, Jeju Air flight 7C2216 carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea crashed on arrival in Muan, smashing into a barrier and bursting into flames - experts are now trying to piece together what happened. Photo: AFP / Yonhap
Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on 29 December stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea's Muan airport, the country's transport ministry says.
Authorities investigating the aviation disaster which killed 179 people, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the "black boxes" to stop recording, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and, when data was found to be missing, was sent to a US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, the ministry said. The damaged flight data recorder would be analysed in cooperation with the US safety regulator, the ministry has said.
Jeju Air 7C2216, which departed the Thai capital Bangkok for Muan in southwestern South Korea, belly-landed and overshot the regional airport's runway, then exploded into flames after hitting an embankment.
The pilots told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike and declared an emergency about four minutes before it crashed into the embankment.
Two injured crew members, who were sitting in the tail section, were rescued.
Two minutes before the mayday emergency call, air traffic control gave a 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 airline's Boeing 737-800 jet took a sharp turn and approached the airport's single runway from the opposite end, crash-landing without landing gear deployed.
Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, said the discovery that there was data missing from the crucial final minutes was surprising, and suggested all power, including backup power, may have been cut, which is rare.
The transport ministry said other available data would be used in the investigation, and it would ensure the probe is transparent and information is shared with the victims' families.
Some members of the victims' families have said the transport 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 focussed on the embankment, which was designed to prop up the "localiser" system used to assist aircraft landing, including why it was built with such rigid material and so close to the end of the runway.
- Reuters
