Divers recover doomed plane’s flight recorder

DIVERS have recovered a flight recorder from the crashed Lion Air jet that plunged into Indonesian seas this week, killing all 189 people on board.

The two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 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 European Union and US blacklists.

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

Navy Colonel Monang Sitompul also told local TV that wreckage believed to be the aircraft’s fuselage was spotted on the seafloor.

Officials said the location is about 400 metres northwest of the co-ordinates where the plane lost contact.

Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight on Monday.

Safety experts, however, said that the data must be checked for accuracy against the flight data recorder.

Investigators believe a preliminary report into the accident could be released within four weeks, but complete findings will take several more months.