South Korea’s transport ministry said Saturday that the two black boxes recovered from the Boeing 737-800 which crashed on Dec 29 have stopped recording some four minutes before the accident. The deadly crash is one of the deadliest in aviation history and occurred December 29 killing 179 people.
The aircraft, operated by Jeju Air, had taken off from Bangkok and was headed for Muan, a regional airport in southwestern South Korea. It belly-landed and overshot the runway, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment. The black boxes, which include the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, are critical in determining the cause of the accident.
The investigators had started by concentrating on the black boxes as evidence. However, they found that the recorders had stopped recording information four minutes prior to the crash time, which matched the time a bird strike had been reported by the pilot. The voice recorder was analyzed in South Korea first but was forwarded to the US National Transportation Safety Board for further review since data were missing.
The missing data raises concerns; it is something that would make all power cuts, including backups, a rather rare occurrence. Investigators will probe further into why the black boxes ceased recording and further examine other data available.
The investigation highlights the crash area’s embankment, especially since it supports the localizer system that directs aircraft to an appropriate landing surface. Questions remain regarding the quality of the materials used for the embankment or its placement beside the runway edge.
The parents of the victim have demanded separate experts to form part of this investigation, following their dissatisfaction by the transport minister’s role at the helm.
