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Indonesia believes it has located Lion Air jet's black box Lion Air crash: plane's black box pulled from water as first victim identified
(about 14 hours later)
Indonesian search and rescue workers believe an underwater “pinging” sound they have detected is from the black box of a passenger jet that crashed into the sea with 189 people onboard, the country’s military chief said on Wednesday. Indonesian Navy divers say they have retrieved a black box from the Lion Air plane that plunged into the Java Sea on Monday morning, believed to have killed all 189 people on board.
Ground staff lost touch with flight JT610 of Indonesian budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. There were no survivors. Divers lifted the device from the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft onto their ship on Thursday morning, the fourth day of the search, after narrowing the area since yesterday. It is not yet clear whether they have picked up the cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder, or both.
Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said that divers had already gone down to check the location from where the signal was picked up by a search and rescue team late on Tuesday, but were contending with strong currents. Officials say they don’t believe anyone on the new aircraft flying from Jakarta to the island of Bangka survived the crash into the Java Sea on Monday. Ground staff lost touch with Lion Air flight JT610 13 minutes after it took off.
“We hope tonight we can drop anchor and release the ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) again and I am sure we will find a black box given the strong indication, and, not far from there, the main body of the plane,” Tjahjanto said. Indonesian Navy diver Sertu Hendra told local news portal Detik.com his team had followed the “pings” or signals from the devices until they able to determine the exact location. “We followed the tool, reducing the area in the place the tools were picking up sounds, and it turns out we got the black box,” he said.
The search and rescue agency chief, Muhammad Syaugi, said the current was so strong it had shifted a large ship, while efforts were further complicated because of oil and gas pipelines in the vicinity. The search for the devices, believed to be the key to determining why the new plane crashed, was initially hampered by strong sea currents.
Syaugi said he believed the fuselage was located 400 metres north-west of where the plane had lost contact at a depth of 32 metres. If found, the fuselage would be lifted using a crane, because many bodies were likely to be trapped inside, he added. Kompas TV reported the black box had been collected by the Baruna Jaya ship assisting in the search operation.
Indonesian police have identified the first victim of the crash.The passenger has been named as Jannatun Cintya Dewi, a 24-year-old woman from Sidoarjo, East Java, and a civil servant for the energy ministry in Jakarta.
Highlighting the gruesome nature of the task, Brigadier-General Hudi Suryanto, in charge of the Automatic Finger Print Identification System (INAFIS), said investigators had identified the first victim on the third day of the search after finding her right hand.
The forensic team ran a fingerprint check, which matched data from Indonesia’s national ID card system. The results were then crosschecked with documents and photos provided by the victim’s family.
“We’ve examined 48 body bags of victim remains and we could identify one victim through primary identification, which is fingerprints and dental records,” Suryanto told reporters.
The disaster victim identification team has taken 152 DNA samples from the families to help identify the victims, with devastated family members flocking to the hospital to hand over toothbrushes, dental records and photographs of their loved ones to assist in the process.
Search and rescue teams, including a team of specialised divers, scoured the waters off Java for the plane fuselage on Thursday morning, the fourth day of the search.
The search and rescue agency chief, Muhammad Syaugi, said the currents were so strong they had shifted a large ship, and that efforts were further complicated by oil and gas pipelines in the vicinity.
Syaugi said he believed the fuselage was located 32 metres down, 400 metres north-west of where the plane had lost contact. If found, the fuselage would be lifted using a crane, because many bodies were likely to be trapped inside, he said.
The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer’s single-aisle jet.The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer’s single-aisle jet.
The plane’s black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, should help explain why the almost-new jet went down minutes after take-off. The plane’s black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, should help to explain why the almost-new jet went down minutes after take-off.
Amid media speculation over the airworthiness of the aircraft, the transport minister suspended Lion Air’s technical director and several technicians to facilitate the crash investigation. As the media speculated about the airworthiness of the aircraft, the transport minister suspended the budget airline’s technical director and several technicians to facilitate the crash investigation.
Relatives are desperate to find traces of their loved ones, but so far only body parts and debris have been found. According to KNKT, the plane had technical problems on its previous flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an “unreliable airspeed” issue.
Human remains in 53 body bags had been recovered and sent to a hospital in Jakarta, officials said. Lion Air, which was founded in 1999 and is privately owned, said the aircraft had been in operation since August, had been airworthy and that the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 hours of flying time between them.
Police officer Hudi Suryanto said forensic doctors had identified only one victim, Jannatun Cintya Dewi, 24, based on her fingerprints. She worked at the energy ministry. The airline’s chief executive, Edward Sirait, has acknowledged reports of technical problems with the aircraft, but said maintenance had been carried out “according to procedure” before it was cleared to fly again.
According to KNKT, the plane had technical problems on its previous flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an issue over “unreliable airspeed”. Investigators are looking into why the pilot had asked to return to base shortly after takeoff, a request that ground control officials granted shortly before the crash.
Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft had been in operation since August, adding that it had been airworthy and the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 hours of flying time between them.
The Lion Air chief executive, Edward Sirait, has acknowledged reports of technical problems with the aircraft, but said maintenance had been carried out “according to procedure” before it was cleared to fly again.
Investigators are looking into why the pilot had asked to return to base shortly after take-off, a request that ground control officials had granted, although the flight crashed soon after.
Lion Air crashLion Air crash
IndonesiaIndonesia
Air transportAir transport
Asia PacificAsia Pacific
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