Indonesia hunts for plane’s cockpit recorders
No sign of survivors as ships, pinger locators scour waters around crash site; pilot was asked to turn back but lost contact minutes after takeoff; plane had ‘unreliable airspeed’ in previous flight
JAVA SEA: Indonesia deployed divers on Tuesday to search for an airliner that crashed with 189 people on board, as “pinger locators” tried to zero in on its cockpit recorders AND IND OUT WHY AN ALMOST-NEW plane went down in the sea minutes after take-off.
GROUND STAFF LOST CONTACT WITH LIGHT JT610 of budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft took off early on Monday from the airport in Jakarta, the capital, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.
Dozens of relatives of those on board gathered at a police hospital where body bags were brought for forensic doctors to try to identify victims, including by taking saliva swabs from family members for DNA tests.
A witness on a boat at the crash site saw about 60 divers scattered IN INLATABLE BOATS OVER THE SLIGHTLY choppy waters entering the sea, which is about 35 metres deep.
Sonar vessels and an underwater drone have also been hunting for the wreckage of the fuselage, where many victims were feared trapped, OFICIALS SAID.
The head of a national transport safety panel, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said that underwater “pinger locators,” including equipment from Singapore, WERE BEING DEPLOYED TO HELP IND THE aircraft’s black boxes.
THE PRIORITY IS INDING THE COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER AND LIGHT DATA RECORDER to help determine the cause of the disaster, safety experts said.
“The visibility is not good as it’s very OVERCAST,” A SPECIAL FORCES OFICER SAID.
Underwater footage released by the national search and rescue agency showed relatively poor visibility.
In all, 35 vessels are helping to search.
The focus was initially an area within 5 nautical miles of where the plane lost contact, but that was expanded to 10 nautical miles on Tuesday and will be expanded to 15 on Wednesday, a SEARCH AND RESCUE AGENCY OFICER SAID.
But only debris, personal items, INCLUDING 52 IDENTIICATION CARDS AND passports, and body parts have been found off the shore of Karawang district, east of Jakarta.
Police said human remains were collected in 37 body bags after sweeps of the site, roughly 15 km off the coast.
Most of those on board were Indonesian but the airline has said an Italian passenger and Indian pilot were on the plane.
THE PILOT OF LIGHT JT610 HAD ASKED to return to base shortly after it took off, at about 6:20am on Monday. Investigators are trying to determine why the pilot issued the request, which was granted.
The deputy of the national transportation safety committee told a news conference the plane had technical PROBLEMS ON ITS PREVIOUS LIGHT, FROM the city of Denpasar on Bali island on Sunday, including an issue over “unreliable airspeed”.
“We are also asking for informaTION FROM THE LAST PILOT WHO LEW FROM Denpasar to Jakarta, but we have not met the technician,” Haryo Satmiko said, referring to the technician who handled the aircraft after it landed on Sunday.
The committee also had a recording of the conversation between the pilot of JT610 before it crashed and the control tower at Jakarta, he said.
Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters at Jakarta’s dock that the investigation would result in sanctions being handed out, but he did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, Indonesia warned social media users on Tuesday against spreading hoaxes.
A string of false stories have been circulating online since the Lion Air plane plunged into the sea off Jakarta on Monday with 189 people on board.
“For all of us, please don’t spread photos of victims and hoaxes. Please be wise,” Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, tweeted.
Sutopo, who has made a name for himself as a straight-talker, highlighted a number of pictures and videos that are making the rounds.
They included Facebook postings showing a photograph of a baby in a life jacket purportedly rescued from the plane’s wreckage. Two witnesses described the plane as swaying or rocking as it came down, adding that THE NOSE HIT THE WATER IRST AND THERE was a tall column of smoke afterwards.