Black boxes from Jeju Air 2216 stopped recording four minutes before crash

One possible scenario is that they had a bird strike on one engine but then accidently turned the working engine off instead. Full loss of power from both engines could have taken the data recorder offline in an older aircraft like this one. With both engines off, they may have panicked to try to complete a tight turn to return to the airport and to maintain altitude to make it to the runway. It's possible the landing gear was forgotten but also possible that it was intentional (to extend glide.) It's too early to know anything with certainty but I suspect that the investigation will show that a different set of choices would have allowed them to put the plane down safely (for example by continuing with the initial approach.) Even in that case, they may not have been to blame - for example they may have been following a standard procedure that should be revisited.

How much would it cost to create a data recorder with a built-in battery? Like a mini UPS that would power the recorder for one hour, if external power failed.<p>The antiquated technology in jets is mind boggling.

Same physical airplane was in the news a couple of days before the crash for declaring an emergency. Probably coincidence? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ekn.kr&#x2F;web&#x2F;view.php?key=20241228028449548" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ekn.kr&#x2F;web&#x2F;view.php?key=20241228028449548</a>

If there was a loss of power, would&#x27;nt the passenger cabin have gone dark?<p>If that is really the case, I would have expected the passengers to have collectively sent text messages informing friends or relatives that &quot;omg, loud noise, lights went off!&quot;.<p>4 minutes would be plenty of time to send messages.<p>We would have read this information much sooner after the crash, ergo I don&#x27;t believe there was a power loss.<p>I fear the data was deleted by <i>some</i> party.

I didn&#x27;t know that was possible. Well sure, almost anything is possible but, this begs questions: how often does this happen, and is there a formal check at some granularity outside of crash events, to check if a black box recorder is working? What&#x27;s the failure rate?<p>I&#x27;m not pushing conspiracy theory, I&#x27;m just a bit aghast the mechanism designed to log things for disaster analysis itself can have .. catastrophic failure before an event.<p>4 minutes is an eternity. This can&#x27;t be down to buffer behaviour and the event itself surely?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pprune.org&#x2F;accidents-close-calls&#x2F;663324-jeju-737-800-crash-muan-airport-south-korea-90.html#post11805112" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pprune.org&#x2F;accidents-close-calls&#x2F;663324-jeju-737...</a> has discussion. Yes, catastrophic loss of power takes them off-line. Some kind of UPS like capacity seems necessary.

It seems like we&#x27;re in a period of realizing that airplane systems aren&#x27;t as robust as we&#x27;ve assumed. E.g. MH370&#x27;s satellite uplink also lost power.

It was a 2009 plane so didn&#x27;t have to have battery backup which was 2010 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pprune.org&#x2F;11803679-post1676.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pprune.org&#x2F;11803679-post1676.html</a><p>Age - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.planespotters.net&#x2F;airframe&#x2F;boeing-737-800-hl8088-jeju-air&#x2F;e54n1v" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.planespotters.net&#x2F;airframe&#x2F;boeing-737-800-hl8088...</a><p>Source it stopped recording - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.molit.go.kr&#x2F;USR&#x2F;NEWS&#x2F;m_72&#x2F;dtl.jsp?id=95090593" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.molit.go.kr&#x2F;USR&#x2F;NEWS&#x2F;m_72&#x2F;dtl.jsp?id=95090593</a>

Can we believe the SK government here? If the popular theories about what happened turn out to be correct (e.g. panic, wrong engine turned off), the black box contents would produce an incredible loss of face for SK. Convenient for it to have failed as well.