Firefighters check near the wreckage of a passenger plane at Muan International Airport on Sunday in Muan-gun, South Korea. A plane carrying 181 people, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, skidded off the airport’s runway and collided with a wall, resulting in an explosion and killing 179. (Chung Sung-Jun)

The two flight recorders on board a South Korean airliner stopped working before the jet crashed during an emergency landing and subsequent crash that killed 179 of the 181 people on board, officials said Saturday.

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

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

The black boxes of a Boeing jetliner that crashed in South Korea last month stopped recording about four minutes before the accident, South Korean officials said Saturday, possibly complicating investigations into the cause of the disaster that killed 179 people.