South Korea air crash investigators extract black box data as grieving families mourn the victims

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Grieving relatives of the victims of the South Korea plane crash gathered at the site to pay respects to their loved ones on New Year’s Day, as officials said they’ve extracted data from one of the retrieved black boxes to find the exact cause of the crash.

All but two of the 181 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air died when it crashed at Muan International Airport, in southern South Korea, on Sunday.

Video showed the aircraft without its landing gear deployed landing on its belly at high speed and then skidding off the end of the runaway into a concrete fence and bursting into flames. The footage showed the plane was experiencing an apparent engine problem in addition to the landing gear malfunction.

Investigators say the pilot received a warning from air traffic controllers of possible bird strikes and the plane issued a distress signal before the crash.

The Transport Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that it has completed works to extract data from the cockpit voice recorder — one of the two black boxes recovered from the wreckage. It said the data would be converted into audio files. A damaged flight data recorder will be sent to the United States for an analysis, the ministry added.

All of the victims were South Korean, except for two Thais nationals, with many returning from Bangkok after Christmas holidays.

The bereaved families visited the site on Wednesday for the first time since the crash for an emotional memorial service. They were bused to the site where they took turns laying white flowers. Many knelt and bowed deeply before a memorial table laid with food, including “ddeokguk,” a Korean rice cake soup eaten on New Year’s Day.

The Transport Ministry said authorities have completed the complicated process of identifying all 179 victims. It said the government has so far handed over 11 bodies to relatives.

The country is observing seven days of national mourning following the deadliest disaster in South Korea’s aviation history in decades.

The government has begun safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800s operated by the country’s domestic airlines. On Tuesday, a team of U.S. investigators, including representatives from Boeing, examined the crash site.

Officials have said they will consider whether the airport’s localizer — a set of antennas housed in a concrete fence at the end of the runway designed to guide aircraft during landings — should have been constructed with lighter materials that would break more easily upon impact.