On Wednesday, South Korean authorities looking into the Jeju Air crash, which claimed 179 lives and was the country’s worst aviation catastrophe, said that they would send one of the recovered black boxes to the US for examination.
On Sunday, the aircraft carrying 181 passengers from Thailand made a Mayday call, belly-landed, collided with a barrier, and exploded in flames, killing all occupants except for two flight attendants who were rescued from the flaming wreckage.
Since the accident on Sunday, US and South Korean investigators—including those from Boeing—have been searching the crash site in southwest Muan.
According to Joo Jong-wan, South Korea’s deputy minister for civil aviation, “the damaged flight data recorder has been deemed unrecoverable for data extraction domestically.”
“Today, it was decided to work with the US National Transportation Safety Board to bring it to the US for analysis.” Prior to this, Joo claimed that both of the aircraft’s black boxes had been recovered and that “the initial extraction has already been completed” for the cockpit voice recorder.
Investigators would be able to hear the pilots’ last conversations as he stated, “Based on this preliminary data, we plan to start converting it into audio format.”
According to Joo, the flight data recorder, the second black box, “was found with a missing connector.”
“A final review by experts is underway to ascertain how to extract data from it.”
Officials first suggested that a bird strike might have caused the accident, but they have subsequently stated that the study was also looking at a concrete barrier at the end of the runway, which was struck by the Boeing 737-800 before it exploded into flames in dramatic video.
They added that, in response to concerns about a potential mechanical failure in the incident, a special inspection of all Boeing 737-800 models flown by regional carriers was looking at their landing gear.
Yoo Kyeong-soo, the director general for aviation safety policy, stated that the landing gear, which in this instance failed to deploy properly, is the primary focus of the ongoing inspections.
On Jeju Air Flight 2216’s first unsuccessful landing attempt at Muan airport, the landing gear deployed correctly, according to local media, but it failed on the second attempt.
At a briefing, the ministry of land, which is in charge of civil aviation, stated that the problem “will probably be examined by the Accident Investigation Board through a comprehensive review of various testimonies and evidence during the investigation process.”
Every victim has been identified.
Delays in identifying and releasing the bodies at Muan airport had angered the victims’ distraught families.
Even though investigators had to preserve crash-site evidence, officials have stated that the bodies were severely injured in the collision, making the identification process slow and extremely challenging.
However, Choi Sang-mok, the nation’s acting president, who has only been in office for a week, announced on Wednesday that the procedure was finally finished and that more bodies had been given to family members so that funerals could be held.
At a disaster response meeting on Wednesday, Choi stated, “Our investigators are conducting a joint investigation into the cause of the accident along with the manufacturer and the US National Transportation Safety Board.”
“A comprehensive analysis and review of the aircraft’s structure and the black box data will reveal the cause of the accident,” Choi added.
The US investigators had arrived Monday and headed straight to Muan, with the initial on-site joint probe focusing on a navigation system known as a localiser that assists in aircraft landings.
The localiser, installed on a concrete structure at Muan International Airport, is the barrier that has been blamed for exacerbating the severity of the Jeju Air crash.
With the exception of two Thais, all of the passengers were Korean nationals returning from year-end vacations to Bangkok.
After officials have examined the black boxes, a more thorough explanation of what went wrong in the last moments of the flight is anticipated.
Across the country, memorial shrines for the victims have been erected, including in Seoul and at the airport in Muan.
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