South Korea has decided to extend to April 18 the shutdown of Muan international airport where a Jeju Air passenger jet crashed last month, the transport ministry said on Saturday.

The nation’s transport ministry reviewed structures near airport runways after the deadly crash of a Jeju Air flight late last month.

The airport is the site of the Dec. 29 crash of the Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 jet that killed 179 passengers on board.

After overcoming pariah status at the end of the last century, South Korea must learn what caused the catastrophe on Dec. 29 and what lessons to draw from it.

A former transport ministry accident investigator said the discovery suggests all power, including backup, may have been cut, which is rare.

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.

South Korea said it planned to improve the structures housing the antennas that guide landings at its airports this year after December's fatal crash of a Jeju Air plane, which skidded off the runway and burst into flames after hitting such a structure.

Investigators probing the Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people last month have found feathers in both engines, according to South Korean media reports, with a bird strike being examined as one possible cause.

South Korean investigators found feathers in both engines of the Boeing Co. 737-800 jet involved in a crash late last month.

Inves­tigators found bird feathers and blood in both engines of the Jeju Air jet that crashed in South Korea last month, killing 179 people, a person familiar with the probe said.

After two major plane crashes, 2024 has officially been declared the deadliest year in commercial aviation since 2018.