The mystery of the plane crash in South Korea deepens due to the lack of black box minutes

It is South Korea’s deadliest plane crash, but solving the mystery of the crash has become much more difficult after authorities discovered that the black boxes failed to record the plane’s last four minutes.

A Jeju Air plane crashed at Muang International Airport on December 29, killing 179 people after the pilot gave a distress signal.

The plane landed with what appeared to be no landing gear deployed and skidded along the runway before crashing into a wall and exploding.

Authorities confirmed the plane struck the birds and the pilot issued a distress call.

Only two minutes before, the air traffic controller had warned the plane about bird activity.

But shortly after the distress call, both of the plane’s black boxes stopped recording, meaning that important information from the cockpit was lost.

“An analysis showed that the CVR and FDR data were not recorded for four minutes before the aircraft collided,” South Korea’s transport ministry said on Saturday.

The ministry added that it was unclear what caused the flight recorders to stop working, but said there was other information to help the investigation.

The pilot recalled a “bird strike”

There are many questions about the crash that have baffled aviation experts.

Normally a bird strike is a manageable event, but the pilot landed in a hurry because the plane landed in the opposite direction from the runway it was originally supposed to land on.

This meant that there was not enough runway for the plane to stop.

It appears that the landing gear has not been deployed, a possible cause is a malfunction.

Before the emergency landing, the pilot made a distress signal and used the terms “bird strike” and “go around”.

But what happened next is not clear, the last four minutes of the recording in the cockpit seem to have been lost.

The passenger plane skidded along the tarmac, then collided with a wall and exploded.

Only two crew members in the very tail of the plane survived.

Black box failure due to power outage

The black boxes may have been damaged by impact or fire, but that doesn’t explain why only the last four minutes of the recording were lost.

Experts say one explanation for why black boxes don’t record is a catastrophic power failure.

“If the plane’s electrical system fails, the black boxes can lose power and stop recording,” wrote Helvig Willamiser, editor of Airways Mag.

Sim Jae-dong, a former investigator at the Ministry of Transport, told Reuters the loss of records showed that all power, including backup power, had been turned off, a rare occurrence.

Investigators are also looking into the possibility that both jet engines lost power due to the collision with the bird.

The crash prompted the South Korean government to order an emergency inspection of all Boeing 737-800s.

The photos of the black box show that it was manufactured by Honeywell.

One of the black boxes was sent to the United States for processing after it was damaged in the crash.

The investigation into the crash is expected to last for months.

The concrete wall at the end of the runway attracted a lot of attention because international airport runways are supposed to be free of any such structures.

As part of the investigation, South Korean police raided the Jeju office in Seoul and the operator of Muan International Airport.

ABC/wires