JAKARTA – Indonesian investigators have recovered data from a crashed passenger jet’s flight recorder, days after the plane with 62 people aboard slammed into the sea, they said today.
“(It’s) all in good condition, and we’re now examining the data,” said National Transportation Safety Committee head Soerjanto Tjahjono in a statement.
The recorder, which includes information on the speed, altitude and direction of the aircraft, could supply critical clues as to why it plunged about 3,000m in less than a minute before crashing into the waters off the capital on Saturday.
A rescue party near the coast has worked for days to salvage human remains and wreckage from the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500, as well as two flight recorders.
More than 3,000 people are taking part in the effort, assisted by dozens of boats and helicopters.
Divers on Tuesday hauled the data recorder to the surface, with the hunt now focused on finding a cockpit voice recorder on the wreckage-littered seabed.
The 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from here, bound for Pontianak city on Borneo Island, a 90-minute flight away.
Authorities said the crew did not declare an emergency or report technical problems with the aircraft before its dive, and that it was probably intact when it hit the water – citing a relatively small area where the wreckage was scattered.
The crash probe is likely to take months, but a preliminary report is expected in 30 days.
Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation sector has long been plagued by safety concerns, and its airlines were once banned from US and European airspace.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed near here.
That accident – and another in Ethiopia – led to the grounding of the MAX worldwide over a faulty anti-stall system.
The jet that went down last weekend was first produced decades ago, and was not a MAX variant. – AFP, January 15, 2021
