Black Boxes of Korean Plane Crash: “We’ve Got Nothing More to Say!”
Last month, a Jeju Air flight made a dramatic belly landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea, turning into a fireball on the runway. The tragic incident claimed the lives of 179 people, with only two survivors who will likely think twice before booking a flight again.
The black boxes of the plane, usually the star witnesses in investigations into what went wrong, decided to call it quits four minutes before the crash. According to South Korea’s Ministry of Transport, it is still not known why these devices decided to stop recording at the worst moment. Maybe they thought, “Our job here is done!”
The flight, en route from Bangkok to South Korea, had issued an emergency mayday call before the crash. The pilot mentioned terms like “bird strike” and “go-around,” suggesting that the local bird population wasn’t feeling particularly hospitable.
Another critical factor in that crash was the presence of an embankment of concrete within close proximity to the runway, a structure the plane touched in its ill-fated attempt to make a landing. Aviation experts remark that such structures are out of order near a runway. One wonders whether the airport designers thought the pilots were training to negotiate obstacle courses.
The black boxes have since been sent to the United States for further analysis. However, one of them was damaged and without a connector; thus, investigators could only cross their fingers in getting useful data from either. Given that they “shut down” early, it’s anyone’s guess just how much insight they’ll provide.
This incident represents the worst aviation disaster in South Korea in almost three decades. The public now hopes the investigation will yield answers and prevent future tragedies—assuming, of course, the black boxes in upcoming flights decide to stick to their job until the very end!
Source: CNN
