South Korean officials investigating the Jeju Air plane crash have issued a worrying update after analysing the black boxes which were retrieved from the wreckage.

Authorities had hoped that the electronic recording devices would provide an insight into what happened in the final moments before the disaster on 29 December.

The Boeing 737-800 which was carrying 181 people had departed from Bangkok, Thailand, and crashed following an emergency landing at Muan International Airport.

Only two cabin crew members survived the fireball after the jet ploughed into a concrete wall at the end of the runway.

The pair – who have both struggled to remember what happened during the incident – were found in the plane’s tail section with several injuries.

Investigators announced they had began extracting data from one of the black boxes on the Jeju Air jet at the start of the month.

South Korea’s transport ministry said this content from the cockpit voice recorder would then be converted into an audio file.

The black boxes from the doomed Jeju Air jet stopped recording four minutes before the crash (JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images)

The second black box – a flight data recorder which was damaged in the crash and missing a crucial connector – was then sent to the US for further analysis.

The Ministry of Transport’s director of aviation policy, Joo Jong-wan, explained at the time: “We have determined that extracting data from the damaged flight data recorder here is not possible.

“And so we have agreed with the NTSB to send it to the US and analyse it there,” he said, according to Yonhap News Agency.

However, in the latest update on the probe into the worst airline disaster South Korea has ever seen, the ministry has revealed that both devices stopped working just minutes before the crash.

Four minutes before the disaster, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder stopped processing data.

The US National Transportation Safety Board discovered the missing chunk of information while analysing the contents of the black boxes.

But according to South Korean officials, other data was available which could aid the investigation.

As well as this, they reassured families of the victims that the probe would be transparent and information would be shared with them.

Sim Jai-dong, a former accident investigator for the transport ministry in South Korea, said the malfunction of the black boxes was extremely surprising.

He said that it suggests that the aircraft could have lost all power, including backup, which he says would be an ‘incredibly rare’ occurrence.

Black boxes are designed to withstand a lot of trauma and are considered to be almost indestructible.

South Korea’s transport ministry are working to determine what happened to the devices (JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images)

Typically located at the rear of an aircraft, these devices can survive extreme temperatures and underwater immersion, but they are not completely unbreakable.

They collect flight data such as speed, altitude and fuel levels, as well as voice recordings from inside the cockpit.

The devices can also pick up on other sounds such as engine noises and radio transmissions, which was the case with the fateful Voepass Linhas Aéreas Flight 2283 crash in August last year.

US aviation expert Frank E Turney explained why the data from black boxes is so important for investigators to get their hands on.

The chair of the aviation department for Capitol Technology University previously told The Guardian: “The [black] box or the flight data recorder is not going to sit there and tell you this is what caused this accident.

“What it’s going to do, it’s going to give you all of the underlying factual data that you can use to try to assess how the accident occurred.

“Sometimes the data that you’re getting from the flight data recorder will be very conclusive on what the cause of the accident was, but most of the time it is going to be a piece of the overall investigation, and not necessarily a slam dunk on ‘this is what caused this accident.'”

According to Turney, there is usually a chain of unfortunate events – known as the ‘accident chain’ – which lead up to an air disaster, rather than one single issue.

He reckons that officials will be looking into the structure of the Jeju Air plane, its mechanics and how the pilots handled the situation.

“They’re going to go through all of that, and then at some point they’re going to sit down and go through all of this information to figure it out,” Turney added.

“But the flight data recorder is usually a fairly sizeable piece of the puzzle that they use to determine the accident.”

An investigation is underway into the Jeju Air crash which killed all but two of the 181 people on board.

Authorities in South Korea are working to determine exactly what caused the tragic plane crash at Muan International Airport on Sunday (29 December) morning local time.

Shocking footage of the incident appeared to show the Boeing 737-800 jet skidding across the runway without having deployed its landing gear.

It then collided with a concrete wall near the end of the 2,800m runway and burst into flames.

The pilot of the plane, which had departed from Bangkok, Thailand, reported that it had struck a bird before the deadly crash, according to the BBC.

Investigators are now trying to find out what other factors may have played a part in the incident, including whether the aircraft’s control systems were disabled.

The plane’s black box has been retrieved from the wreckage, but is missing a key connector which will delay the data extraction from it, South Korea’s transport ministry said.

However, analysis of the cockpit voice recorder has now begun, which will hopefully provide a clearer picture of the final moments on board.

The Jeju Air plane burst into flames after smashing into a concrete wall (Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Aviation experts have also been questioning why the ‘unusual’ concrete wall was located near the end of the runway.

The four-metre tall dirt-and-concrete embankment at the South Korean airport was part of a guidance system, which helps pilots land when visibility is poor or at night.

But according to David Learmount, who is the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine and an aviation boffin, it’s positioning proved to be the ‘defining moment’ of the tragedy.

He believes that if the Boeing 737-800 had not hit the wall, it would have instead gone through a perimeter fence and across a road before coming to a stop in a nearby field.

“To have a hard object about 200m or less into the overrun, I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere ever before,” he told Sky News.

“There was plenty of space for the aircraft to have slowed down, come to a halt.

“And I think everybody would have been alive…the pilots might have suffered some damage going through the security fence or something like that.

“But I even suspect they might have survived.”

Lufthansa pilot Christian Beckert described the concrete wall as ‘unusual’ to Reuters, saying: “The reason so many people died was not the landing as such, but the fact that the aircraft collided with a very hard obstruction just beyond the runway end.

“Normally, on an airport with a runway at the end, you don’t have a wall.”

Aviation experts have been sharing their thoughts on the incident (X)

According to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, a navigation system which assists aircraft landings – known as a localiser – is inside of the concrete structure.

It is reported to have been raised and covered with dirt to keep this system level and ensure it works correctly.

At most airports, the instrument landing systems are placed on collapsible structures.

Another pilot with 48 years of experience, Chris Kingswood, explained that obstacles that are located ‘within a certain range and distance of the runway’ are required to be breakable.

“Which means that if an aircraft strikes them that they do break,” he told the BBC. “It does seem unusual that it’s such a rigid thing.”

He said that the alternate outcomes of the crash, specifically what might have happened if the wall wasn’t there, will ‘certainly [be] something that will be investigated’.

Kingswood added: “Aeroplanes are not strong structures – they are, by design, light to make them efficient in flight.

“They’re not really designed to go high-speed on its belly, so any kind of structure could cause the fuselage to break up and then be catastrophic.”

Discussion is also mounting around whether the pilots of the fateful Jeju Air flight even knew the barrier was there.

Aviation analyst Sally Gethin added: “We need to know, were [the pilots] aware there was this hard boundary at the end?

“If they were directed by the control tower to reverse the use of the runway the second time around, that should come out in the investigation of the black boxes.

“I think there are so many questions.”

What have Jeju Air and Boeing said about the crash?

In a statement, Boeing said: “We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding flight 2216 and stand ready to support them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew.”

Jeju Air also added: “We deeply apologize to all those affected by the incident. We will make every effort to resolve the situation. We sincerely regret the distress caused.”

Scientists studying a 5,000-year-old monument in the Middle East have made a startling discovery about the structure.

Called Rujm el-Hiri, it is often referred to as the ‘Stonehenge of the East’ due to its similarities to the English monument.

Officially called ‘megalith’ structures, it is scientific speak for prehistoric constructions put together using large stone with many of them found across Europe in particular; some 35,000 exist on the continent alone.

Rujm el-Hiri is not found in Europe, though, with it located in the Golan Heights region of Syria.

Rujm el-Hiri from the sky (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

What is Rujm el-Hiri?

Roughly 16 kilometres inland from the Sea of Galilee, it is made up of more than 42,000 rocks arranged in concentric circles.

At the middle of it all is a large mound of rocks that is 15 foot high at its tallest point, which is roughly 4.6 metres.

But to this day people aren’t quite sure what the point of Rujm el-Hiri is. Or rather, was.

The name itself translates as ‘stone heap of the wildcat’, with a modern name for the site being Gilgal Refaʾim which translates as ‘Wheel of Ghosts’ or Wheel of Spirits’.

Made up of almost 40,000 tonnes of stone, it is estimated to have taken more than 25,000 combined working days to have put the megalith together.

Spooky theories surrounding Rujm el-Hiri

Having been first discovered in 1967 during an archaeological survey, it was only then excavated in 2007.

Experts have ruled out it being a burial site given that no human remains are on the site.

But some still theorise that astronomical connections are behind it, connected to ancient cultures observing the stars and planets while others think it could be linked to rituals and offerings to gods.

Rujm el-Hiri is in Syria, north of Israel (Olga Khabarova et al, Remote Sensing)

Rujm el-Hiri new findings

In a new study on the monument, published in the journal Remote Sensing, new satellite images of Rujm el-Hiri have been analysed by scientists from Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The findings put doubt on links to astronomy and the stars.

Instead, it has been confirmed that the structure has physically moved over time.

Due to Earth’s tectonic plates moving over time – we’re talking eight to 15 millimetres every year for the last 150 million years – there has been significant alteration to the walls and entrances of the structure.

As a result, the site has moved counterclockwise and moved the entire monument by tens of metres.

It’s moved over time (Olga Khabarova et al, Remote Sensing)

“The findings show that the entrances and radial walls during that historical period were entirely different, reopening the question of the site’s purpose,” the research team says.

“This implies that the primary axes of Rujm el-Hiri have rotated over time along with the entire region, casting significant doubt on the popular theory that Rujm el-Hiri was an observatory.”

The outer walls of Rujm el-Hiri were built between 5,000BC and 4,500BC.

The cruise captain who was responsible for the Costa Concordia disaster was alleged to have crashed the ship while trying to ‘impress his lover’.

A lot of lads have gone to great lengths to woo a woman, but most men wouldn’t dare put the lives of more than 4,000 people at risk just to show off.

Francesco Schettino apparently didn’t get this memo though, as 33 passengers and crew members were tragically killed due to his decision.

The former shipmaster, from Italy, currently remains behind bars as he was ultimately convicted of manslaughter, causing the Costa Concordia crash and abandoning his passengers.

He began serving his 16-year sentence in 2017 after exhausting the appeals process, meaning he is now halfway through the jail term.

Schettino – who was dubbed ‘Captain Coward’ after he abandoned the sinking ship – claimed that he had simply wanted to dazzle holidaymakers on that fateful day in January 2012.

The 64-year-old was the skipper on the seven-day Mediterranean cruise, which had departed from Civitavecchia, near Lazio, on the Italian coastline.

A few hours after leaving the port on 13 January, 2012, the luxury liner was close to the holiday island of Giglio and Schettino decided to try and give his passengers a glimpse of the place.

However, this ‘sail by’ – which was also accompanied by a maritime salute, where the ship’s horn is sounded to locals – meant that the Costa Concordia deviated from its planned course.

33 people died after the Costa Concordia crashed in January 2012 (Laura Lezza/Getty Images)

So, those onboard had no idea that an outcrop of rocks were in the ship’s path, and although Schettino eventually yelled at the crew to reroute the vessel, it was too late to save it.

A huge 35-metre gash opened up on the side of the Costa Concordia upon impact, while gallons of water began rushing in – flooding the engine room and causing the ship to tilt.

It partially sank after landing unevenly on an underwater ledge, but Schettino didn’t hang about to see the damage, as he hightailed it out of there on a lifeboat which he later claimed he had ‘fell’ into.

It’s safe to say that he made a series of devastating mistakes while captaining the Costa Concordia.

But according to Schettino, being distracted by a young Moldovan dancer was not one of them – despite claims suggesting that this was the reason for the crash.

His alleged lover, Domnica Cemortan, who was 24 at the time, confessed that she had been having an affair with the captain in court.

According to the BBC, prosecutors said he steered too close to the island to show off to Cemortan.

But the dancer said she could not have distracted Schettino as the crash took place, because she was standing ‘very far’ away from him, the Daily Mail reported.

Francesco Schettino, now 64, insisted rumours that he was trying to impress his lover weren’t true (John Cantlie/Getty Images)

But during his court testimony, Schettino insisted it was his passengers who he actually wanted to please and he claimed that the sail by was for ‘commercial reasons’.

The captain said he had three objectives – to give his passengers a show, salute a retired captain who lived on Giglio and to satisfy the ship’s head waiter, who was from the island.

“I wanted to kill three birds with one stone,” Schettino said, while explaining that he didn’t think it was necessary to inform the ship’s owners, Costa Crociere, about the diversion as it was considered ‘an approach’ rather than a ‘touristic route’.

An investigative report into the disaster, carried out by Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports, found that the vessel was ‘sailing too close to the coastline’.

The ‘poorly lit shore area’ and the Costa Concordia being at an ‘unsafe distance at night time and high speed (15.5 kts)’ also played a part in the fatal incident, the report stated.

Ultimately, 33 people lost their lives in the disaster and the body of the final victim was only recovered two years after the incident in November 2014.

Schettino and members of his team were ultimately charged with multiple offences, including manslaughter, following the Costa Concordia disaster.