The damaged flight data recorder from the Jeju Air passenger jet that crash-landed in South Korea will be sent to the United States for analysis, Seoul’s transport ministry said Wednesday, as bereaved families began visiting the crash site.
The recorder is one of two “black boxes” retrieved from the Boeing 737-800 after it belly-landed at Muan International Airport in the country’s southwest on Sunday, killing all but two of the 181 people onboard, the deadliest aviation accident for South Korea in almost three decades.
Authorities said the black box was damaged in the crash, and concluded that South Korea is not capable of extracting the data, Seoul’s deputy minister of civil aviation Joo Jong-wan told reporters Wednesday. Earlier, Joo said the flight data recorder was missing a connector.
Once the device has been sent overseas, the US National Transportation Safety Board will lead the analysis and be joined by South Korean investigators. It is not clear how long the process will take.
Meanwhile, investigators have extracted initial data from the second black box – the cockpit voice recorder – and are working to convert its contents into voice files, Joo said.
The process, which is taking place in South Korea, will take about two days. Authorities hope the data from both black boxes will offer vital information that could help determine the cause of the disaster.
