Posted on 01/11/2025 7:06:30 AM PST by Erik Latranyi
THE black box on the Jeju Air jet that crashed in South Korea stopped recording data just minutes before the disaster, officials said.
The crash at Muan International Airport on December 29 killed 179 people on board after the plane hit a wall at the end of the runway after an emergency landing and exploded into a fireball.
As authorities investigate the worst airline disaster on South Korean soil, the transport ministry revealed that flight data and cockpit voice recorders stopped processing data four minutes before the crash.
The ministry is now investigating how the aircraft's black boxes - which are designed to be almost indestructible - stopped working.
Black boxes are usually found at the back of the aircraft near the tail, which is usually the least damaged part in a crash.
They are designed to withstand extreme temperatures, high-speed impact, and submersion underwater to help investigators retrieve crucial flight data.
This includes speed, altitude, engine noise, radio transmissions and voice recordings from the cockpit.
However, they are not entirely fail-safe and can be destroyed.
On the Jeju Air flight, there were two black boxes - one recording data from the aircraft itself and the other recording the pilots in the cockpit - and they both stopped working.
The transport ministry said officials sent the damaged devices to the US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory for analysis when the missing data was discovered. What is known about the incident is that in the four minutes before the crash, the pilots reported a bird strike to air traffic control.
They then declared an emergency and abandoned a landing attempt to try another manoeuvre.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
Folks were claiming g was the balloons over the us were shutting down military electronics- wonder if something similar might have happened there?
I didn’t know it was even possible to stop a flight data recorder. One wonders about the pilot at that point.
Is it possible to run a 737 by telemetry? If so, one could then suspect hacking.
“...officials sent the damaged devices to the US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory for analysis...”
I guess I’m a true conspiratorialist now. I wouldn’t be sending anything to a gov’t lab if I wanted to get the truth.
“CRASH TWIST Mystery as doomed South Korean jet’s black box stopped recording data four minutes BEFORE fireball crash killed 179”
I suspect that most here haven’t been in a plane crash, for if you have been, you’d know understand why the black box stopped doing its job, as it was scared to death.
Actually, this kind of reeks of Nixon - not going to end well for that government.
The black boxes have their own batteries so they can continue recording even if main power is out.
It is almost as if someone intentionally disconnected them
Could this be another suicide?
Kamikaze pilot for the Norks.
Wiped by Korean officials to protect the honor of the flight crew (and the airline company).
I don't think the Black Boxes are accessible from the cabin.
I read that CVR / FDR battery backup regulations were only put in place in 2010 and this aircraft predates that. Therefore it is optional, and the airline chose not to install.
What is bizarre is the aircraft clearly had power after the bird strike (it could not have glided for four minutes based on altitude). Hard to understand then why the generators failed and the circuit wasn’t reset.
Good thought- kinda sounds like It might be maybe.
It’s a weird case for sure.
If they were really off, someone shut them off.
This 737 plane was manufactured in 2009 and therefore is not required to have the Recorder Independent Power Supply (RIPS) that the FAA mandated in 2010. It is an optional retrofit for older airframes. So it wouldn’t have the 10 min backup supply unless retrofitted with it.
That being the case if they had a bird strike that killed engine 1 and the first officer mistakenly in a panic hit the fire suppression system from engine 2 flaming it out they would have lost all 400hz /115V bus power. If they didn’t start the APU immediately after the bird strike then with engine 1&2 down they are now dead stick on with no hydraulics nor electrical and fully in manual reversion controls which take big muscle strength to move those controls via cables and pulleys. With out the APU there is no HP bleed air to restart the good engine either, and low and slow means no windmill restart on the good engine too. CVR and FDR have dual power inputs one is 115V AC from the primary or secondary AC power bus the other is 28V DC from the DC power bus. The 737 had batteries for its back up DC bus but those must be connected via circuit breakers to the primary DC bus as the batteries oonly automatically power the emergency flight instruments.
Losing not engines plus no APU is bad very bad as Boeing counts on the APU for dual engine out for electrical and hydraulics plus bleed air for cabin pressure and of course engine restart. The 737 has no ram air turbine by default it is a custom add on due to those manual reversion controls that the 737 is the last aircraft to have fully manual flight controls as a hardware back up.
So with both engines down and if the FO also didn’t start the APU they were dead stick and the FDR/CVR were also dead since this year model has no requirements for the RIPS system.
Shut off or were wiped after they were retrieved?
Why wouldn't those instruments include the FDR?
Localized emp?
Interesting.
Trial run?
The Boeing-Honeywell Uninterruptible Auto-Pilot can remotely run essentially everything in all modern FAA Part 21 aircraft.
Think MH370.
Before 2010 there was no requirements for the RIPS system so if you had a complete power loss and didn’t manually circuit breaker your 28V emergency batteries from the instruments to the bus that runs the flight-data acquisition unit (FDAU) and the FDR/CVR those would both be unpowered.
The fact that they both drop out right after the bird strike kills one of the engines , says the FO didn’t start the APU and also hit the fire suppression system in the wrong engine. They were dead stick at that point w/o electrics or hydraulics and emergency electric power for just the emergency flight instruments. They could bus power over to the APU circuit and spin it up then attempt a relight on the good engine but they were low and slow , so no windmill start nor windmill hydraulics either this explains the lack of flap deployment too. The gear has gravity drop down back up they missed that too.
The 737 has twin electric pump units for system A&B which the brakes can use either but gear down is only system A. The electric drive pumps on system A or B and then you get 6 gallons per min max vs 33 from a engine driven pump, it’s enough for basic flight controls and brakes with one AC electric pump running. This is contingent on AC 115V power not 28V DC so that APU is the only source if both engines are down...it looks like they didn’t have the APU up before the other engine was lost or cut out. The 737 has a specific procedure for a APU DC start , again if low and slow they may not have had time for it. With no AC power and limited DC they were in manual reversion without hydraulic brakes literally no hope of stopping before they overran the runway even if they hadn’t landed long 2/3 down the runway.
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