Muan International Airport

The pilots’ conversation with air traffic controllers, revealed in a partial transcript, could offer clues to what caused the disaster in South Korea, which killed 179 people.The pilots of Jeju Air Flight 2216 signaled three different plans for landing the stricken plane in the minutes before it crashed and killed 179 people in December, according to a partial transcript of their communication with air traffic controllers obtained by The New York Times.The transcript shows that the pilots reported a bird strike and radioed a mayday call as they approached Muan International Airport in South Korea on the morning of Dec. 29. They said they would turn left, then asked to turn right, intending to approach the airport’s sole runway from the south. When that failed, air traffic controllers asked if they wanted to land from the opposite direction, and the pilots said yes.The plane landed on its belly, overran the runway and struck a concrete structure that housed navigation aids, bursting into a deadly fireball. Only two people — flight attendants at the very back of the plane, a Boeing 737-800 — survived.The cause of the disaster, the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil, is still being investigated, and the exchange between the pilots and the control tower could be a crucial piece of the puzzle. That is because it covers a period of about four minutes during which both of the plane’s flight recorders, known as black boxes, had stopped recording.The transcript includes no information about the state of the jet’s two engines or its electrical supply, which are intense areas of focus for investigators. It is still unclear why the black boxes went dark or why the plane’s landing gear was not engaged.The transcript was read out on Saturday to relatives of the victims by a representative of a board that was set up to investigate the crash. The official told them that the readout excluded parts of the conversation to protect the privacy of its participants, according to people who shared it with The Times. Officials have not publicly released the transcript, and the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More