Indonesian Deputy Maritime Minister on Monday said rescuers have found the cockpit voice recorder from a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in Oct. 29, killing all 189 people on board.
The deputy maritime minister, Ridwan Djamaluddin, told newsmen that the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) had informed the ministry about the recovery.
Djamaluddin added that human remains were also discovered at the seabed location.
Also Naval Lt.-Col. Agung Nugroho told newsmen that a weak signal from the recorder had been detected for several days and that it had been found buried in about eight metres of mud in waters about 30 metres deep.
The cockpit voice recorder is one of the two so-called “black boxes” crucial for the investigation of a plane crash.
Investigators have already recovered the flight data recorder from the Boeing 737 Max, which provided information about the speed, altitude and direction of the two-month-old jet that plunged into the Java Sea.
The preliminary crash report from Indonesian authorities suggested that pilots of Flight 610 struggled to control the plane’s anti-stalling system immediately before the crash.
Investigators also found that the Lion Air jet should have been grounded over a recurrent technical problem before its fatal journey however did not pinpoint a cause of for the accident.
Nugroho said that navy divers discovered the cockpit voice recorder in waters off Tanjung Karawang near the crash site off the coast of West Java.
He said it was buried under thick mud in water 30 metres deep.
“We don’t know what damage there is, it has obvious scratches on it,’’ Nugroho said.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after it took off from Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta airport on Oct. 29.
The name, black boxes are usually bright orange with reflective stripes, and all commercial planes are obliged to have them on board.
They are built to survive at vast depths and in extreme heat, and are fitted with a beacon which can emit a signal for one month.
According to aviation experts, black box data help explain almost 90 per cent of all crashes.
A final crash report is not likely to be filed until later this year. (dpa/NAN)
