By Hyunjoo Jin and Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) -The flight information and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording about 4 minutes earlier than the airliner hit a concrete construction at South Korea’s Muan airport, the transport ministry mentioned on Saturday.
Authorities investigating the catastrophe that killed 179 folks, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what precipitated the “black containers” to cease recording, the ministry mentioned in an announcement.
The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and, when information was discovered to be lacking, despatched to a U.S. Nationwide Transportation Security Board laboratory, the ministry mentioned.
The broken flight information recorder was taken to america for evaluation in cooperation with the U.S. security regulator, the ministry has mentioned.
Jeju Air 7C2216, which departed the Thai capital Bangkok for Muan in southwestern South Korea, belly-landed and overshot the regional airport’s runway, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment.
The pilots instructed air visitors management the plane had suffered a chicken strike and declared emergency about 4 minutes earlier than it crashed into the embankment exploding in flames. Two injured crew members, sitting within the tail part, have been rescued.
Two minutes earlier than the Mayday emergency name, air visitors management gave warning for “chicken exercise”. Declaring emergency, the pilots deserted the touchdown try and initiated a go-around.
However as a substitute of constructing a full go-about, the finances airline’s Boeing (NYSE:) 737-800 jet took a pointy flip and approached the airport’s single runway from the alternative finish, crash-landing with out touchdown gear deployed.
Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, mentioned the invention of the lacking information from the essential ultimate minutes was stunning and suggests all energy together with backup could have been minimize, which is uncommon.
The transport ministry mentioned different information obtainable could be used within the investigation and that it might make sure the probe is clear and that info is shared with the victims’ households.
Some members of the victims’ households have mentioned the transport ministry shouldn’t be taking the lead within the investigation however that it ought to contain impartial specialists together with these advisable by the households.
The investigation of the crash has additionally focussed on the embankment, which was designed to prop up the “localiser” system used to help plane touchdown, together with why it was constructed with such inflexible materials and so near the top of the runway.
