Indonesia closes in on location of jet’s black box

JAKARTA: Indonesian investigators said they were homing in on the black box from a crashed jetliner after locating its ‘pings’ yesterday, two days after the jet crashed shortly after takeoff with 189 people on board.

Retrieving the black box will be key to unlocking why the Boeing 737-MAX, one of the world’s newest and most advanced commercial passenger jets, nosedived into the Java sea so soon after leaving Jakarta.

Authorities picked up the box’s signals some 30- 40 metres below the surface of the water off Indonesia’s north coast, where the plane crashed Monday.

“We have not found the black box’s location, but it’s in the area, within a threekilometre radius,” Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, told Kompas TV.

“Usually the black box location is near the main wreckage.”

The box contains flight data that shows the speed, altitude and direction of the plane, while the cockpit voice recorder keeps track of conversations and other sounds in the cockpit.

Dozens of divers were taking part in the 1,000- strong personnel recovery effort along with helicopters and ships, but authorities have all but ruled out finding any survivors.

The development comes as Boeing officials were due to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane maker’s 737-MAX jets.

Indonesia’s Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi took the unusual step of ordering the temporary removal of Lion Air’s technical director and several other staff who cleared the flight, citing government authority over the aviation sector.

Yesterday, forensic analysts said they had made their first confirmed identification — a 24-year- old female chemical engineering graduate who described herself in an online blog as “energetic and highly motivated”. — AFP