Crashed Lion Air jet voice recorder found

JAKARTA: Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said, in a possible boost to the accident investigation.

Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters yesterday that remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location.

A spokesman for the Indonesian navy’s western fleet, Lt Col Agung Nugroho, said divers using high- tech “ping locator” equipment had started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8m of seabed mud.

The plane crashed in waters 30m deep.

The device is being transported to a navy port in Jakarta, Nugroho said, and will be handed over to the transportation safety committee, which is overseeing the accident investigation.

“This is good news, especially for us who lost our loved ones,” said Irianto, the father of Rio Nanda Pratama, a doctor who died in the crash.

“Even though we don’t yet know the contents of the CVR, this is some relief from our despair,” he said.

The two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Oct 29, killing everyone on board.

The cockpit data recorder was recovered three days after the crash and showed that the jet’s airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights. If the voice recorder is undamaged, it could give valuable additional information to investigators.

Navy chief Rear Adm Harjo Susmoro said the voice recorder was found just 50m from where the data recorder was located.

He said the voice recorder’s signal, designed to last 90 days following a crash, would’ve stopped in about 15 days.

The Lion Air crash was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan.