Indonesia recovers data from flight register for discontinued passenger jet
Indonesian investigators have successfully recovered data from a crashed passenger’s jet flight recorder, days after the plane with 62 people on board crashed into the sea, they said on Friday.
“(It is) all in good condition and we are now examining the information,” said the head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, Soerjanto Tjahjono, in a statement.
The recorder, which holds information about the planet’s speed, altitude and direction, can provide critical clues as to why the plane crashed about 3,000 meters in less than a minute before crashing into water off Jakarta on Saturday.
A rescue party near the capital’s coast has been working for several days to rescue human remains and wrecks from the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500, as well as two flight recorders.
More than 3,000 people are participating in the recovery effort, with the help of dozens of boats and helicopters.
On Tuesday, divers pulled the data record to the surface, with the hunt now focused on finding a cockpit voice recorder on the wrecked seabed.
Security issues
The 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after departing from Jakarta, en route to the city of Pontianak on Borneo Island, a 90-minute flight away.
Authorities said the crew did not declare an emergency or report technical problems with the plane before its dive and that it was probably intact when it hit the water – citing a relatively small area where the wreck was scattered.
The crash test would probably take months, but a preliminary report was expected in 30 days.
Indonesia’s fast – growing aviation sector has long been plagued by security concerns and its airlines have once been banned from US and European airspace.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed near Jakarta.
That accident led to the 737 MAX worldwide being shut down by a faulty anti-stall system.
The 737 that went down on Saturday was first produced several decades ago and was not a MAX variant.
(AFP)
