Data recovered from black box as search widens
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Investigators succeeded in retrieving hours of data from a crashed Lion Air jet’s flight recorder as Indonesian authorities on Sunday extended the search at sea for victims and debris.
National Transportation Safety Committee deputy chairman Haryo Satmiko told a news conference that 69 hours of flight data was downloaded from the recorder including its fatal flight.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta last Monday, killing all 189 people on board in the country’s worst airline disaster since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan.
The flight data recorder was recovered by divers on Thursday in damaged condition and investigators said it required special handling to retrieve its information. The cockpit voice recorder has not been recovered but searchers are focusing on a particular area based on a weak locator signal.
National Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said Sunday the search operation, involving hundreds of personnel and dozens of ships, would continue for another three days.
Syaugi paid tribute to a volunteer diver, Syahrul Anto, who died during the search effort on Friday.
More than 100 body bags of human remains have been recovered. Syaugi said the number would continue to increase and remains were also now washing up on land.
He said weak signals, potentially from the cockpit voice recorder, were traced but the device hasn’t been found yet due to deep seabed mud.
Flight tracking websites show the plane experienced erratic speed and altitude during its 13 minute flight and a previous flight the day before from Bali to Jakarta. Passengers on the Bali flight reported terrifying descents and in both cases the different cockpit crews requested to return to their departure airport shortly after takeoff. Lion has claimed a technical problem was fixed after the Bali fight.
Syaugi said a considerable amount of aircraft “skin” was found on the seafloor but not a large intact part of its fuselage as he’d indicated was possible Saturday.
He and other top officials including the military chief plan to meet with families on Monday to explain the search operation.
Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016.