Search on for voice recorder

PLANE CRASH: SALVAGE OPERATION CONTINUES

Authorities unable to explain why plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from Jakarta.

Divers scoured the seabed near Indonesia’s capital yesterday for the cockpit recordings of a crashed passenger plane, after investigators said it would be days before they could read the fl ight data recorder that had already been salvaged.

The two “black boxes” could supply critical clues as to why the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged about 3 000 metres in less than a minute before slamming into the Java Sea soon after takeoff on Saturday, taking with it 62 people.

Divers just off the coast of Jakarta had hauled the data recorder to the surface on Tuesday, with the hunt now focused on finding a voice recorder on the wreckage-littered seabed.

The discovery came as a team from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) prepared to join the investigation in the capital, along with staff from Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and jet engine producer GE Aviation.

“The search continues and we’re hoping for a good result,” Rasman MS, the search-and-rescue agency’s operations director, said yesterday.

Agency chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said investigators hoped to download data from the retrieved black box in a matter of days, so “we can reveal the mystery behind this accident”.

Black box data includes the speed, altitude and direction of the plane as well as fl ight crew conversations and helps explain nearly 90% of all crashes, according to aviation experts.

So far, authorities have been unable to explain why the 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from Jakarta, bound for Pontianak city on Borneo island, a 90-minute fl ight away.

More than 3 000 people are taking part in the recovery effort, assisted by dozens of boats and helicopters flying over small islands off the capital’s coast.

A remotely operated vehicle has been deployed to assist the divers, but strong currents and monsoon rains can make the task harder.

“It’s not easy to find victims and parts of the fuselage because the debris and human remains are usually in small pieces so they can easily drift away,” said Agus Haryono, part of the search-andrescue agency’s crash team. –