South Korea’s worst air disaster brings together investigators from Jeju Air and the United States National Transportation Board to analyze recovered equipment
Investigators into the Jeju Air crash, the world’s worst air disaster, which left 179 dead, announced this Wednesday (1st) that they will send one of the plane’s black boxes to the United States for analysis. “The damaged flight data recorder was deemed unrecoverable for nationwide data extraction,” said vice minister in charge of civil aviation Joo Jong-wan. Therefore, he said, “it was agreed to transport it to the United States for analysis by the National Transport Council” of that country.
The plane from Thailand, with 181 people on board, made an emergency landing on Sunday, without having activated the landing gear, at the airport in the city of Muan, in the southwest of South Korea. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 , slid down the track until it collided with a concrete wall and caught fire. Two flight attendants were rescued alive and the remaining 179 people on board died. Vice Minister Joo announced on Wednesday that investigators have extracted the first data from one of the black boxes of Jeju Air flight 2216.
The initial extraction of the cockpit voice recorder “has already been completed,” Joo said. “Based on this preliminary data, we plan to start converting it to an audio format,” he added. The plane’s second black box was also recovered, but “it was found without a connector”, explained the vice minister. Hours later, he said it would be sent to the United States. Authorities initially cited a bird strike as the likely cause of the tragedy, but later pointed to the presence of a barrier at the end of the runway as a reason for what happened. Dramatic video of the accident shows the moment the plane crashes into the concrete wall and catches fire.
Landing gear under analysis
In turn, the director general of air safety policy, Yoo Kyeong-soo, indicated that the inspection of the South Korean fleet of B737-800 aircraft focuses on the landing gear. Ongoing inspections “mainly focus on the landing gear, which was not properly activated in this case,” Yoo said. Local media reported that the landing gear worked correctly when the pilots made a first landing attempt, which they were unable to complete, but it did not activate on the second attempt.
This “will likely be examined by the Accident Investigation Board through a broad analysis of various testimonies and evidence,” the Ministry of Territories, responsible for civil aviation, announced at a press conference. At Muan airport, families of the victims have been frustrated in recent days by the delay in identifying and delivering the bodies. Authorities explained that the bodies were extremely damaged by the accident, making identification difficult.
However, current President Choi Sang-mok said on Wednesday that identification had been completed and more bodies had been handed over to relatives for burial. “Our investigators, along with the National Transportation Safety Board of and the (plane) manufacturer are conducting a joint investigation into the cause of the accident,” Choi said Wednesday at a meeting on the disaster.
*With information from AFP
Posted by Victor Oliveira
