
Eventually, Locke managed to use this little time in executing the button routine, before all five figures were locked in place. The figures locked in consecutively, separated by almost a second, and were accompanied by loud mechanical noises. At the zero count five Hieroglyphs started to roll in: three black figures appearing in position of the minutes count, and two red figures in the seconds count position. Locke was restrained by Jack from pushing the button before the timer reached the zero count. Hieroglyphs flipping in the countdown timer However, when he later analyzed The Pearl's log of that period, Desmond came to the conclusion that his system failure was the apparent cause of the Flight 815 crash (" Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1"). As Desmond frantically managed to enter the numbers while facing a monitor flooded with failure notifications, the build-up broke and things went back to normal. At that point, the hieroglyphs were accompanied by a high power-build up, rising through time and causing the whole computer room to shake rapidly, while a system failure alarm signal kept playing. In " Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1", Desmond revealed in his flashbacks an early incident where the hieroglyphs were all locked for a long period. See more details about the significance of these symbols in: Hieroglyphs. ( Official 'Lost' Podcast/July 31, 2006) Other hieroglyphs are also momentarily visible on the countdown timer as it flips to the 5 final symbols:

The red and black hieroglyphs from the failure sequence were translated by Damon Lindelof to mean "underworld", although Carlton Cuse noted that they are "subject to interpretation". After their entering of the Hatch, the survivors encountered this sequence in 2 more incidents, before the last incident ending with the second system failure and the implosion of the Swan.

The first occurrence of the failure sequence was revealed in Desmond's flashback, where it led to the first system failure. However, as soon as the system failure started, the counter soon became of no use due to the strong electromagnetism effect.
#Minute countdowns code
Locke, attempting to force in the Numbers code into the computer, to break the first failure sequence witnessed by the survivorsįailing to execute the button sequence before the last 4 minutes of countdown pass resulted in the sequence of actions described below: See more details about the significance of this count in: 108. For instance, 108 is the sum of the Numbers, which are also used as a code in resetting the counter. The 108 count actually holds a number of relations to many other themes in Lost.

Thus, the last 4 minutes in countdown after the sounding of the alarm, was the normal interval used in resetting the button. The countdown timer was regularly reset every 108 minutes, before and after the crash, a routine known as " pushing the button." As revealed by Locke, the timer could not be reset any time before the 104-minute mark, since that was the only time where the computer accepted typing (" What Kate Did"). Hence, the countdown represented the maximum time limit for a "safe" build-up of the charge. Kelvin described the electromagnetic energy as continually building up - and that the act of pushing the button "discharges it". (" Orientation") Kelvin later described the incident as a leak although he may not have been aware of the particulars of what happened in 1977. Candle, the protocol was established after the incident - although he did not reveal exactly what happened. Marvin Candle in the Swan Orientation Film. The procedure to reset the countdown timer was first described by Dr. Countdown resetting described in the Swan Orientation Film
