Indonesian divers hunt for crashed jet’s black boxes

POLICE EXPERTS SAID THEY HAVE IDENTIFIED THEIR FIRST VICTIM, A 29-YEAR-OLD MAN, OKKY BISMA, A FLIGHT ATTENDANT.

JAKARTA: Indonesian navy divers scoured the floor of the Java Sea on Monday as they hunted for the black boxes of a Sriwijaya Air jet that nosedived into the water over the weekend with 62 people aboard.

The Boeing 737-500 jet disappeared minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, during heavy rain on Saturday, and the search so far has yielded plane parts and human remains but no sign of survivors.

Authorities have said signals from the boxes containing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders were detected between Lancang and Laki islands in the Thousand Island chain just north of Jakarta. Officials said they have marked a location where the sounds were being emitted from the black boxes, which detached from the tail of the aircraft when it plummeted into the sea.

The cockpit voice recorder holds conversations between pilots, and the data recorder tracks electronic information such as airspeed, altitude and vertical acceleration. When found, they will be transported to port and handed to the National Transportation Safety Committee overseeing the crash investigation.

More than a dozen helicopters, 53 navy ships and 20 boats, and 2,600 rescue personnel have been searching since Sunday and have found parts of the plane in the water at a depth of 23 metres, leading rescuers to continue searching the area.

National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bagus Puruhito said divers using high-tech “ping locator” equipment were looking for an identified target beneath 20 metres of seabed mud.

Television footage showed landing gear, wheels and a jet engine among the parts found, while other rescuers brought several body bags containing human remains to a police hospital in eastern Jakarta for the identification process.

Searchers have sent 17 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts who on Monday said they’d identified their first victim, a 29-yearold man, Okky Bisma, a flight attendant. The transport committee’s chairman, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said the black boxes could provide valuable information to investigators. Once the device is found and taken to the investigators’ facility, it will take three to five days to dry and clean the device and to download its data, Tjahjono said.

Tjahjono ruled out a possible midair breakup after seeing the condition of the wreckage. He said the jet was intact when it plunged and it broke into pieces upon the impact with the water.