Black boxes of South Korea Jeju Air plane stopped recording 4 mins before crash

The black boxes of the Jeju Air plane that crashed on Dec. 29 at Muan International Airport in South Korea, which killed 170 people, had stopped recording four minutes before impact, said South Korea's transport ministry on Jan. 11, 2025.

Black boxes are key instrument tools that hold flight data records (FDR), as well as cockpit voice records (CVR).

The conversion of CVR to audio files are thought to contain critical information on the last moments, which would assist investigations, shared deputy transport minister Joo Jong-wan in a media briefing on Jan. 11, reported Reuters.

"The analysis revealed that both the CVR and FDR data were not recorded during the four minutes leading up to the aircraft’s collision with the localiser," said the transport ministry, referring to the barrier at the end of the runway as the localiser, South China Morning Post reported.

The damaged FDR has also been deemed "unrecoverable" for data extraction by local South Korean authorities, and has been sent to the United States' National Transportation Safety Board laboratory for further analysis, SCMP added.

Controversy has also arisen over the placement of the localiser-barrier, that has been thought to exacerbate the severity of the crash.

South Korea's transport ministry has acknowledged the concerns, but has defended its placement as one that did not violate any safety guidelines, reported Korea Times.

The ages of those on board ranged from three to 78.

The crash

The Boeing 737 had been returning from Bangkok, travelling from Thailand to Muan, South Korea when its landing gear failed to deploy due to a bird strike.

As such, the plane had to attempt a belly landing at around 9:03am local time.

Whilst it did so, the plane subsequently veered off the runway and collided with a fence, causing an inferno to rip through the entire plane immediately.

A Jeju Air Flight carrying over 180 Passengers has crashed at Muan International Airport in South Korea, with at least 23 Deaths confirmed so far by Authorities. pic.twitter.com/i9Smqi30F6

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) December 29, 2024

The plane had been carrying 181 passengers and crew members, of which two were Thai nationals and the rest, South Korean.

According to a statement released by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Jan. 6, all 179 of the deceased were identified via fingerprints or DNA.

Muan Airport continues to remain closed until Jan. 14, 2025 for accident investigations, said the ministry in the statement.

This is the worst domestic civil aviation disaster in South Korea's history, reported Korean media JoongAng Ilbo.

Related stories

Top image via sentdefender/X