Investigators in South Korea have finished extracting data from a flight recorder retrieved from the wreckage of the Jeju Air plane that crashed during landing on Dec. 29 and will send it to the United States for analysis, government officials said on Jan. 2.
The Dec. 29, 2024, crash at Muan International Airport killed 179 of the 181 people on board the Boeing 737-800 operated by the South Korean budget airline.
Two people, crew members who were seated at the tail end of the plane, survived the crash. One of them was still in critical condition and the other was being treated for injuries, according to the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.
While attempting to make an emergency landing at the regional airport, the plane overshot the runway and burst into flames after hitting a concrete wall at the end of the runway.
The cause of the crash—one of the worst aviation disasters to have taken place on the country’s soil—is still unclear.
It is being taken to the United States for analysis in cooperation with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the ministry stated, because officials concluded that an analysis was unable to be completed in South Korea.
“We have determined that extracting data from the damaged flight data recorder here is not possible,” said Joo Jong-wan, director of the ministry’s aviation policy division. “And so we have agreed with the NTSB to send it to the U.S. and analyze it there.”
Runway Wall Proved ‘Catastrophic,’ Experts Said
The ministry said investigators have also finished extracting data from the cockpit voice recorder and converting it to audio files, according to Yonhap.The voice recorder was found in a relatively better condition than the flight data recorder, the publication reported.
Officials hope that the recorders will provide critical information on the final minutes of the flight and help determine what caused the aircraft to crash-land in southwestern South Korea after departing from Bangkok.
Some air safety experts believe that the nearly two-meter-tall concrete wall—which housed multiple localizers to guide planes onto the runway during landings—exacerbated damage to the plane and should not have been at the end of an airport runway.
“This rigid structure proved catastrophic when the skidding aircraft made impact,” Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, said on Jan. 1.
Meshkati said it was concerning that the navigation antenna was mounted on “such a formidable concrete structure, rather than the standard metal tower/pylon installation.”
On Jan. 1, authorities had finished identifying all 179 people killed in the crash, allowing bereaved families to start making funeral arrangements.
