The Jeju Air black boxes aboard a Boeing 737-800 that crashed at Muan Airport on December 29, 2024, failed to record the final minutes of flight data.

The discovery of the missing data suggests all power may have been cut, which is rare, a former government accident investigator said.

The two flight recorders on board a South Korean airliner stopped working before the jet crashed during an emergency landing and subsequent crash that killed 179 of the 181 people on board, officials said Saturday.

The Boeing 737-800, en route from Bangkok, crash-landed without its landing gear deployed, slid off the runway, and hit a wall, bursting into flames. Investigators had hoped the recorders, often referred to as "black boxes," would shed light on the crucial moments leading up to the accident.

The missing data deepens the puzzle of what caused the deadly air disaster in Muan, South Korea, late last month.

The flight recorder of the Jeju Air passenger jet that crashed last month, killing ​179 people, stopped recording for​

South Korea’s leading low-cost carrier, heavy with debt and its stock already near record lows, is now facing intense public and government scrutiny.

Before it suffered the deadliest crash in South Korea's history, budget airline Jeju Air was moving fast: racking up record passenger numbers and flying its aircraft more than domestic rivals and many of its global peers,

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea's Muan airport, the transport ministry said on Saturday.