JAKARTA: Bad weather forced scores of divers to temporarily suspend their hunt for a crashed Indonesian jet’s cockpit voice recorder on Wednesday, as investigators worked to read critical details on a flight data device that had already been salvaged.
The two “black boxes” could supply key clues as to why the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged about 10,000 feet in less than a minute before slamming into the Java Sea soon after take-off on Saturday, taking with it 62 people.
Divers just off the coast of Jakarta had hauled the data recorder to the surface on Tuesday, with the hunt now focused on finding a voice recorder on the wreckage-littered seabed.
The discovery came as a team from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) prepared to join the investigation in the capital, along with staff from Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and jet engine producer GE Aviation.
While dozens of boats and helicopters searched for wreckage, poor conditions forced divers to temporarily suspend their hunt.
“It was called off... due to bad weather. All divers are now on standby,” said search and rescue agency spokesman Yusuf Latif.
A remotely operated underwater vehicle was still searching the wreckage-littered seabed.
Agency chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said a day earlier that investigators hoped to download data from the retrieved black box in a matter of days, so “we can reveal the mystery behind this accident”.
Black box data includes the speed, altitude and direction of the plane as well as flight crew conversations, and helps explain nearly 90 per cent of all crashes, according to aviation experts.
So far authorities have been unable to explain why the 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from Jakarta, bound for Pontianak city on Borneo island, a 90-minute flight away. — AFP
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