AirAsia Data Recorder Recovered from Java Sea
So far, fewer than 50 bodies have been recovered; search officials say they expect more bodies will be found in submerged fuselage of plane.
BANGKOK — The flight data recorder of AirAsia Flight 8501 has been retrieved from the Java Sea. Authorities said the cockpit voice recorder from the passenger jet that crashed on December 28 has also been located. Navy divers on Monday brought to the surface the flight data recorder of the Indonesia AirAsia flight, two weeks after it crashed into the Java Sea. The head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Henry Bambang Soelistyo, said the data and voice recorders that compose the so-called black box had become separated. Soelistyo explained to reporters in Jakarta that divers of a joint search-and-rescue team found and lifted part of the black box containing the flight data recorder. The cockpit voice recorder, he added, was not brought to the surface, but its location has been identified. It is hoped that the information contained on the two recorders will help investigators determine why the Airbus A320 plunged into the sea less than halfway into its two-hour flight from Surabaya to Singapore. All 162 people on board died. So far, fewer than 50 bodies have been recovered. Search officials say they expect more bodies will be found in the submerged fuselage of the plane, which is in the sea’s relatively shallow waters. Indonesia’s transport ministry suspended AirAsia’s license for the Surabaya-Singapore route, for which it did not have permission to fly on that ill-fated Sunday. But the ministry said this had no bearing on the crash of Flight 8501, which is believed to have encountered a severe storm. Indonesia President Joko Widodo said the crash has brought to light widespread problems with air travel management in the country, the world’s fourth largest, which sprawls across an archipelago composed of thousands of islands.