Divers recover plane’s flight data recorder on Indonesia sea floor

Divers have recovered a flight data recorder from the crashed Lion Air jet on the sea floor, a crucial development in the investigation into what caused the two-month-old plane to plunge into Indonesian seas earlier this week, killing all 189 people on board.

One TV station showed footage of two divers after they surfaced, swimming to an inflatable vessel and placing the bright orange device into a large container that was transferred to a search-andrescue ship.

“I was desperate because the current below was strong but I am confident of the tools given to me,” said navy 1st Sgt Hendra, who uses a single name, in a television interview.

After narrowing the possible location “I started digging and cleaning the debris until I finally found an orange object,” he said, standing on the deck of a ship next to his diving mate.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crashed early on Monday just minutes after take-off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

It was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia in more than two decades and renewed concerns about safety in its fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from EU and US blacklists.

Navy Colonel Monang Sitompul told local TV an object believed to be the aircraft’s fuselage was also seen on the sea floor.

The device recovered by divers is the flight data recorder and the search for the cockpit voice recorder continues, said Bambang Irawan, an investigator with the National Transport Safety Commission.

“We will process the data contained in this FDR as part of the investigation process to find out the cause of the crash,” he said.

“We cannot say how long it takes to process data in a black box, but of course we will try as soon as possible.”

The location of the find was about 500 metres north-west of the coordinates where the plane lost contact and at a depth of 30 metres, said search and rescue agency head Muhammad Syaugi.