The ministry says the black boxes of the South Korean Jeju plane stopped recording 4 minutes before it crashed

SEOUL (Reuters) – The flight data and cockpit voice recorder of the Jeju Air plane that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording about four minutes before the plane hit a concrete structure at South Korea’s Muan Airport, South Korea’s transportation ministry said on Saturday.

The ministry said in a statement that the authorities investigating the disaster that claimed the lives of 179 people, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyze why the “black boxes” stopped recording.

The ministry said that the voice recorder was initially analyzed in South Korea, and when data was found to be missing, it was sent to the laboratory of the US National Transportation Safety Board.

The ministry said that the damaged flight data recorder was transported to the United States for analysis in cooperation with the American safety regulatory authority.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, which left the Thai capital Bangkok for Muan in southwestern South Korea, landed in the belly of the plane, overshot the runway at the regional airport, and exploded and burst into flames after colliding with a bridge.

The pilots told air traffic control that the plane had been struck by birds and declared a state of emergency about four minutes before it hit the dam and exploded due to the flames. Two injured crew members, who were sitting in the tail section, were rescued.