Flight recorders from the passenger jet that crashed in South Korea last month, killing more than 170 people, stopped working minutes before the plane belly-landed and exploded on the runway, investigators said Saturday.

The voice and data recorders pulled from the wreckage of the Jeju Air Co. jet in South Korea failed to capture the final moments before the Boeing Co. 737-800 made an emergency landing and crashed, depriving investigators of evidence to help understand the cause of the country’s deadliest aviation accident.

Officials say the black boxes of a Boeing jetliner that crashed in South Korea last month stopped recording about four minutes before the accident.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216’s flight recorders have been recovered after crash that killed 179 people, but authorities say data relating to crucial 4 minutes prior to crash are missing

The two black boxes on the Boeing jet involved in the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil stopped recording about four minutes before the accident, the transport ministry said on Saturday. South Korean investigators previously said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were key to finding out the cause of last month's crash that killed 179 people.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea's Muan airport, the transport ministry said on Saturday.

The black boxes of the Boeing 737-800, which crashed in South Korea, stopped recording data four minutes before the crash. The black boxes of the Boeing 737-800, which crashed at the end of December at Muan Airport in South Korea,