Did the Jeju Air plane experience a total electrical blackout? “The pilots attempted a desperate maneuver, there must have been panic on board”

As a reminder, the avenues mentioned to explain the accident of Jeju Air flight 2216 are a collision with birds and a malfunction of the landing gear. The presence at the end of the runway of the obstacle struck by the plane – a navigation aid tool installed on a mound reinforced with concrete – is also the subject of an investigation.

But how can we explain this sudden cessation of recordings? Did the South Korean authorities or Boeing want to hide certain things, as some have claimed? For our expert, a black box that stops recording is “extremely rare, even unprecedented.” “Sometimes, black boxes are not found, or their data cannot be recovered because of the impact. But that is not the case here. When we recover black boxes in good condition, they always ‘talk’.

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According to our interlocutor, there is, however, a plausible technical reason for this stoppage. “Since 2010, Boeing 737 flight recordings have been on a permanently powered battery, which cannot be disconnected and which is extremely well protected. But the plane dates from 2009 and this device did not yet exist.”. For our specialist, different elements (stopping of recordings, malfunction of the landing gear, “not released” shutters, “disappearance of the transponder code”) plead for “a total power outage” on the plane. “A total blackout is extremely rare. There can be short circuits in an airplane, but there are always emergency instruments that work. However, I see no other explanation”.

In these cases, pilots have no choice. “The only option is to land at all costs. We try to land the plane as if it were a Cessna (a small pleasure plane, Editor’s note). But with a Boeing 737, twenty times heavier, much faster and with a significant amount of flammable kerosene on board, a pilot does not know how it will end. The pilots attempted a desperate maneuver, there must have been panic on board.” It remains to be understood how this electrical failure could have been caused. “In my opinion, a damaged engine, even on fire, cannot cause such a blackout. There must be another reason.”