South Korea to send Jeju Air flight data recorder to US for analysis

The South Korean government announced on Wednesday that it will send the flight data recorder from the crashed Jeju Air plane to the United States for further analysis, according to a report by Yonhap News Agency.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stated that the timeline for transferring the flight recorder will be determined in coordination with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Recovered from the wreckage of the Jeju Air B737-800 aircraft at Muan International Airport, the flight recorder was found to have sustained external damage, including a missing connector that links the data storage unit to its power source.

Joo Jong-wan, director of the aviation policy division at the ministry said, "We have determined that extracting data from the damaged flight data recorder here is not possible. And so we have agreed with the NTSB to send it to the US and analyse it there," Yonhap reported.

A team from the United States had arrived in South Korea on Monday and began joint investigations with South Korean officials, led by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the following day at Muan.

During their initial joint on-site investigation, investigators focused on a navigation system that assists in aircraft landings, known as a localizer. The localizer, installed on a concrete structure, at Muan International Airport has been blamed for exacerbating the severity of casualties in the Jeju Air crash, Yonhap reported.

South Korean authorities had confirmed that 179 people were killed and two people were rescued out of 181 aboard following a plane crash in South Korea's Muan region.

The incident occurred on Sunday morning when a Jeju Air passenger jet, carrying 175 passengers and six crew members, belly-landed and exploded at Muan International Airport, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The aircraft veered off the runway while landing, with its landing gear not deployed, skidding across the ground, hitting a concrete wall, and bursting into flames.