First South Korean plane crash flight recorder data recovered

Experts have successfully transmitted data from one of the two flight recorders recovered after the weekend's plane crash in South Korea with 179 dead, authorities in Seoul said on Wednesday.

The data is from the voice recorder in the cockpit, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The second black box is still being examined as it was damaged in Sunday's crash of the Boeing 737-800 at Muan Airport in the south-west of the country, it said.

Analysts hope that the flight recorder data will provide further insights into the cause of the accident, which occurred as the aircraft landed from Bangkok.

However, the ministry warned that this would still take some time, according to the Yonhap news agency. The authority also announced that it had now identified all 179 victims.

Local investigators and several US officials and representatives of the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing were working at the scene of the accident.

The aircraft of South Korea's Jeju Air budget airline landed without its landing gear deployed, skidded across the runway and crashed into a 4-metre wall.

Only two crew members survived of the 181 people on board. Apart from two Thai nationals, all were Koreans.

The crash landing was preceded by an emergency call from the pilots reporting that they had collided with birds. The tower in Muan had warned of such a bird strike about a minute beforehand.

However, it is unclear why the landing gear was not extended during the approach. Investigators did not rule out that a malfunction occurred as a result of the bird strike.

The wall at the end of the runway also appeared to have exacerbated the extent of the disaster as the plane broke apart and burst into flames.

An antenna system was mounted on the wall to assist pilots during landing. Although the antennas are necessary, according to some experts they should not have been encased in a concrete wall and mounded earth.