By Hyunjoo Jin and Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) -The flight knowledge 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 stated on Saturday.
Authorities investigating the catastrophe that killed 179 individuals, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what brought on the “black bins” to cease recording, the ministry stated in an announcement.
The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and, when knowledge was discovered to be lacking, despatched to a U.S. Nationwide Transportation Security Board laboratory, the ministry stated.
The broken flight knowledge recorder was taken to the USA for evaluation in cooperation with the U.S. security regulator, the ministry has stated.
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 hen 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, had been rescued.
Two minutes earlier than the Mayday emergency name, air visitors management gave warning for “hen exercise”. Declaring emergency, the pilots deserted the touchdown try and initiated a go-around.
However as a substitute of creating a full go-about, the price range airline’s Boeing (NYSE:) 737-800 jet took a pointy flip and approached the airport’s single runway from the other finish, crash-landing with out touchdown gear deployed.
Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, stated the invention of the lacking knowledge from the essential closing minutes was shocking and suggests all energy together with backup might have been reduce, which is uncommon.
The transport ministry stated different knowledge obtainable can be used within the investigation and that it will make sure the probe is clear and that data is shared with the victims’ households.
Some members of the victims’ households have stated the transport ministry shouldn’t be taking the lead within the investigation however that it ought to contain unbiased 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 tip of the runway.
