Final 4 minutes of recordings on Jeju Air flight missing, preliminary report says
SEOUL -- The final four minutes of flight recordings before a Jeju Air flight crashed into an embankment at the end of a runway in South Korea are missing, a preliminary report into the investigation of the crash that left 179 people dead said.
Recordings from both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are missing, according to the report released Monday.
The crash occurred at Muan International Airport on Dec. 29, 2024. There were a total of 175 passengers and six crew members aboard the Boeing 737, which had taken off from Bangkok, Thailand.
There were two survivors of the crash, both crew members, one man and one woman, according to officials at the time.
The preliminary report into the deadly crash was released on Monday by the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board.
Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder recordings from the flight stopped minutes before the airplane hit the concrete structure, or embankment, at the end of the runway at the Muan International Airport, according to the report.
The last four minutes and seven seconds of the recordings before the plane crashed are missing, the preliminary report stated.
Right before the end of the recording, the air traffic control tower advised the airplane to be "cautious of bird activity" at 08:57:50, the preliminary report says.
The CVR and FDR recordings stopped at 08:58:50. The airplane hit the embankment at 09:02:57, the report says.
The pilots of the Jeju Air flight identified a group of birds while approaching the runway and "during a go-around" and feathers and bird blood stains were found on both of the engines of the plane, the preliminary report said.
"Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB) will tear down the engines, examine components in depth, analyze CVR/FDR and ATC data, and investigate the embankment, localizers, and bird strike evidence. These all-out investigation activities aim to determine the accurate cause of the accident," the preliminary report said.
ABC News' Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
