The US is stepping in to assist South Korean investigators with data extraction from one of the two black boxes from Sunday's deadly Jeju Air plane crash, which killed all but two of the 181 people aboard. The Guardian reports both black boxes have been retrieved; data successfully pulled from the Boeing 737-800's cockpit voice recorder will be converted into an audio format, likely within the next two days, giving investigators access to the pilots' last communications. But the plane's flight data recorder was damaged in the crash and is missing a needed connector, reports the BBC.
It "has been deemed unrecoverable for data extraction domestically," said aviation minister Joo Jong-wan on Wednesday. "It was agreed today to transport it to the United States for analysis in collaboration with the US National Transportation Safety Board." South Korean experts will take part in the analysis process done in the US; CNN reports it's unclear how long that process will take. A team made up of a dozen South Korean investigators and 10 Americans—FAA, NTSB, and Boeing officials among them—are handling the joint investigation, per South Korea's transport ministry.
Black boxes are generally placed in the tail of a plane, which is thought to typically suffer the least damage in the event of an accident. Among the questions the data could potentially answer: why the landing gear failed to deploy, why there was not enough time to dump fuel, and why the plane landed at such a high rate of speed, with the air brakes apparently not working. (More South Korea plane crash stories.)
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