South Korean plane crash mystery deepens with missing black box minutes

This was the deadliest air disaster to occur within South Korea, but the mystery behind this tragedy has become even more difficult to unravel as authorities have disclosed that the black boxes failed to record data from the final four minutes of the flight. A Jeju Air flight crashed at Muan International Airport on December 29, killing 179 people, after the pilots had issued a distress signal.

The aircraft appeared to have not deployed its landing gear upon approach, skidding along the runway before hitting a wall and exploding. According to the South Korean Ministry of Transportation, the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder of the Jeju Air plane that crashed last month stopped recording about four minutes before the aircraft hit a concrete structure at Muan Airport in South Korea.

Authorities confirmed that the plane had suffered a bird strike, and the pilots had issued a distress signal. Just two minutes prior, air traffic control had warned the aircraft about bird activity. However, shortly after the distress signal, both of the plane's black boxes stopped recording, meaning that crucial information from inside the cockpit is now lost. “Analysis showed that no CVR and FDR data were recorded during the 4 minutes before the aircraft collision,” the South Korean Ministry of Transportation said on Saturday. The ministry added that it is not yet clear what caused the flight recorders to stop working but said there is other data available to help with the investigation.

A number of puzzling questions have been raised by aviation experts regarding the disaster. Bird strikes are usually manageable events, but the pilots made a hasty landing, with the plane landing in the opposite direction to the runway they were originally scheduled to land on. This meant that there was not enough runway for the plane to stop. The landing gear did not appear to be deployed, with a malfunction cited as a possible cause. The pilots issued a distress signal before the emergency landing and used terms such as “bird strike” and “go-around.” But what happened next is unclear, with the final four minutes of the cockpit recordings seemingly missing.

The airliner skidded along the tarmac before hitting a wall and exploding. Only two crew members, located at the tail of the plane, survived. The black boxes could have been damaged by the impact or the fire, but this does not clearly explain why only the last four minutes of recordings are missing. Experts say a catastrophic electrical failure is one reason why the black boxes failed to record. “If there is a fault in the aircraft's electrical system, the black boxes could lose power and stop recording,” wrote Helwig Villamizer, editor of Aviation Magazine. Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, told Reuters that the loss of recordings suggests that all power sources, including backup power, were cut, which is rare. Investigators are also looking into whether the bird strike caused both jet engines to lose power.

The crash has prompted the South Korean government to order emergency checks on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Photos of the black boxes show that they were manufactured by Honeywell. One of the black boxes was sent to the United States for processing after being damaged in the crash. The investigation into the crash is expected to take months. The concrete wall at the end of the runway has raised widespread concern, with international airport runways typically not having any such structures. As part of the investigation, South Korean police raided the offices of Jeju Air in Seoul, as well as the operator of Muan International Airport.