The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crashed fifteen minutes after its take-off killing all of 189 on-board.
Investigators have succeeded in retrieving hours of data from the Lion Air jet's flight recorder that crashed into sea last week shortly after its take off from the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta.
Addressing a press conference, National Transportation Safety Committee deputy chairman Haryo Satmiko said that 69 hours of flight data was downloaded from the recorder including its fatal flight.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crashed fifteen minutes after its take-off killing all of 189 on-board. The JT-610 flight was travelling from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang when the flight lost control with the air traffic controllers.
Indian-origin pilot Bhavye Suneja, who commanded the Lion Air Flight was also killed in the crash.
The flight data recorder was recovered by divers on Thursday in damaged condition and investigators said it required special handling to retrieve its information. The cockpit voice recorder has not been recovered but searchers are focusing on a particular area based on a weak locator signal.
National Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said on Sunday the search operation, now in its 7th day and involving hundreds of personnel and dozens of ships, would continue for another three days.
The flight data recorder was recovered by divers on Thursday in damaged condition and investigators said it required special handling to retrieve its information.
Syaugi paid tribute to a volunteer diver, Syahrul Anto, who died during the search effort on Friday. The family of the 48-year-old refused an autopsy and he was buried Saturday in Surabaya.
More than 100 body bags of human remains had been recovered. Syaugi said the number would continue to increase and remains were also now washing up on land.
He said weak signals, potentially from the cockpit voice recorder, were traced to a location but an object hadn’t been found yet due to deep seabed mud.
Flight tracking websites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude during its 13 minute flight and a previous flight the day before from Bali to Jakarta. Passengers on the Bali flight reported terrifying descents and in both cases the different cockpit crews requested to return to their departure airport shortly after takeoff. Lion has claimed a technical problem was fixed after the Bali fight.
The Lion Air crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan.
Syaugi said a considerable amount of aircraft “skin” was found on the seafloor but not a large intact part of its fuselage as he’d indicated was possible Saturday.
Flight tracking websites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude during its 13 minute flight and a previous flight the day before from Bali to Jakarta.
He and other top officials including the military chief plan to meet with families on Monday to explain the search operation.
The Lion Air crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board.
