Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board Announces
"Black Box Stopped Recording Data 4 Minutes Before Collision"
Difficulties Expected in Determining Exact Cause
Firefighters are searching for belongings at the site of the Jeju Air passenger plane collision and explosion accident that occurred at Muan International Airport, Jeonnam, 30 days ago. Photo by Kang Jin-hyeong
The black box that was expected to reveal the cause of the Jeju Air disaster that occurred at Muan Airport on the 29th of last month has been found to have stopped recording data from 4 minutes before the collision. Difficulties are anticipated in accurately determining the cause of this disaster.
According to the status of the Jeju Air passenger plane accident investigation by the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) on the 11th, the analysis of two black boxes, consisting of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR), sent to the United States revealed that no records were kept from 4 minutes before the collision. Since the 31st of last month, ARAIB has been conducting a joint investigation with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the aircraft design and manufacturing authority.
ARAIB stated, "On the day of the accident, the CVR, which plays a very important role in determining the cause of the aviation accident at the site, was collected in apparently intact condition, while the FDR was collected with the connector between the power supply and data storage unit damaged."
They continued, "The CVR data was extracted at our own testing and analysis center located at Gimpo Airport, converted into audio files on the 2nd, and after transcribing on the 4th, it was found that recording stopped about 4 minutes before the aircraft collided with the localizer. Currently, the cause is unknown."
ARAIB added, "To ensure reliability through cross-verification of the CVR analysis results, we coordinated with the U.S. NTSB to transport the CVR together with the FDR to the U.S. for analysis."
Furthermore, "The FDR, which was judged impossible to extract data domestically, and the CVR requiring cross-verification, were rapidly extracted and analyzed from the 7th to the 11th at the NTSB analysis facility in Washington, U.S., with two ARAIB investigators present," they said.
ARAIB stated, "The analysis results confirmed that data from both the CVR and FDR stopped being recorded during the 4 minutes immediately before the aircraft collided with the localizer, and we plan to identify the cause of the data loss during the ongoing accident investigation process."
The investigators currently in the U.S. are scheduled to return on the afternoon of the 13th.
ARAIB said, "Although the data from the CVR and FDR are important for the accident investigation, the investigation is conducted through examination and analysis of various data, and we will do our best to accurately determine the cause of the accident."
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