PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) – Divers retrieved one of the black boxes today from the AirAsia plane that plummeted more than two weeks ago into the Java Sea, a major breakthrough in the slow-moving hunt to recover bodies and wreckage.
The flight data recorder was found under part of the plane’s wing and brought to the surface early in the morning, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, head of the national search and rescue agency.
Divers began zeroing in on the site a day earlier after three Indonesian ships picked up intense pings from the area, but they were unable to see it due to strong currents and poor visibility, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, operation coordinator at the national search and rescue agency.
He earlier said the black box was lodged in debris at a depth of about 30 metres, but Soelistyo did not provide additional details about the discovery.
Searchers will continue to scour the seabed to try to locate the other black box, the cockpit voice recorder, which is believed to be emitting a separate signal between two metres to 20 metres away, he said.
“Hopefully, it can be retrieved within hours today,” Supriyadi said from Pangkalan Bun, the town closest to the site on Borneo island. He added that diving conditions were not favourable.
The two instruments are vital to understanding what brought Flight 8501 down on December 28, killing all 162 people on board. They provide essential information including the plane’s vertical and horizontal speeds along with engine temperature and final conversations between the captain and co-pilot.
The flight data recorder will be taken to Jakarta, the capital, for analysis. It could take up to two weeks to download its information, said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the National Committee for Safety Transportation.
Officials recovered the aircraft’s tail on Saturday, the first major wreckage excavated from the crash site. They were hopeful the black boxes were still inside, but learned they had detached when the plane crashed into the sea.
On Sunday, the ships detected two strong signals near each other.