Indonesia locates black box recorders from crashed Boeing passenger plane

Indonesian authorities say they have located black box recorders from the Boeing passenger plane that crashed shortly after taking off from Jakarta a day earlier.

“The two signals emitted by the black box are continuously monitored and now we have them marked,” Indonesian military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said on Sunday.

“Hopefully in not too long we can lift up the black boxes for the National Transportation Safety Committee to investigate and find out the cause of the crash,” he added.

The announcement came as rescue teams recovered body parts and debris near the Boeing jet’s crash site off the coast of Jakarta.

There was no sign of survivors.  

“Several body parts have been found and they've been taken to the police hospital for identification,” Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus told the AFP news agency.

Indonesia finds body parts, debris at Boeing plane crash site

Indonesian divers have located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing passenger plane that crashed shortly after takeoff on Saturday.

The cockpit voice and flight data recorders which have been located are items crucial to understanding what happened to the aircraft that went down with 62 people on board, including 10 children.

All passengers and crew were Indonesians, according to authorities.

The Sriwijaya Airline Flight SJ 182, which was bound for the city of Pontianak on the island of Borneo, crashed into the Java Sea on Saturday afternoon after a one-hour delay due to heavy monsoon rainfall.

The 26-year-old plane lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than 60 seconds, according to Flightradar24, the flight-tracking service.

On Saturday night, distraught relatives waited nervously for news of loved ones at the airport in Pontianak.

“I have four family members on the flight – my wife and three children,” one of the passenger’s relatives said as he waited at airport. “[My wife] sent me a picture of the baby today … How could my heart not be torn into pieces?”

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo expressed his “deep condolences,” calling on citizens to “pray together so that victims can be found.”

He also said the government is doing its best to find the victims.

Indonesian plane with 62 on board crashes into sea

The Boeing 737-524, a Sriwijaya Air flight, lost contact four minutes into the air amid heavy rainfall.

Meanwhile, Indonesian authorities have urged close family members to provide photos, films, and DNA samples, as well as dental and medical records of the passengers to speed up the identification process of the remains.

Even though the cause of the crash has yet to be determined, aviation experts believe the crash was likely the result of a design flaw in the Boeing airliner. 

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. 

Another 737 MAX 8 jetliner crashed in Ethiopia five months later and killed 149 people, leading to the grounding of the MAX 8 for 20 months.

Following a legal investigation into the flagship US company, Boeing was ruled to pay some $2.5 billion to resolve criminal charges linked to the two deadly crashes.

Indonesia's aviation sector has long had a reputation for poor safety, and its airlines were once banned from entering US and European airspace.

In 2014, an AirAsia plane headed from Surabaya to Singapore crashed, taking 162 lives.

Domestic investigators' final report on that crash said major factors were to blame, including a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance, and the pilots' inadequate response.

A year later, in 2015, more than 140 people, including scores on the ground, were killed when a military plane crashed shortly after take-off in Medan on Sumatra island.

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