Black box from South Korea plane crash did not record final 4 minutes, officials say

The black boxes of the passenger jetliner that crashed in South Korea last month killing 179 people stopped recording about four minutes before the crash, South Korean officials said Saturday.

After analyzing the devices, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded that both the flight data and cockpit voice recorders stopped working about four minutes before the crash, the South Korean Transportation Ministry said.

The Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air skidded off a runway in the South Korean town of Muan on Dec. 29 after its landing gear failed to deploy, slamming into a concrete structure and bursting into flames, killing all but two of the 181 people on board.