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Damaged Black Box Poses New Challenge for Lion Air Crash Probe


A flight data recorder, part of the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610's black box. Photographer: Malekiano/AFP via Getty Images

Indonesian authorities seeking to solve the mystery behind the Lion Air plane crash have recovered only a section of what they suspect is the flight data recorder, the latest challenge in the investigation into what downed the Boeing Co. jet.

The shattering of the device, which is built to withstand high-impact crashes, shows how violently the 737 Max jet plunged and broke into pieces. Teams from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and General Electric Co., the maker of aircraft engines, have joined the investigation, according to the Indonesian government.

"The section is most likely the flight data recorder," the search agency said in a statement, citing Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee Chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono. "Next, the hope is that the other black box, the cockpit voice recorder, can be found immediately to uncover the cause of the accident."

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders -- both of which are often referred to as black boxes -- hold information on a plane's electronics, systems and store the conversation of pilots and help aid accident investigations.

More than four days after Lion Air flight JT610 carrying 189 people lost contact, Indonesian search crews have fished out little else than small pieces of the aircraft, body parts of victims and personal belongings. The hunt for clues has evoked images of the years-long and as yet unsuccessful search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014.

The doomed jet went down from 4,850 feet (1,479 meters) altitude in just 21 seconds, according to data compiled by FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking system. The final data point obtained by FlightRadar24 showed the plane descending at 30,976 feet per minute, meaning it was moving downward at about 350 miles an hour. Such speeds are typical of mid-range flight speeds, but unheard of for a descent.

While it may take days or weeks before definitive information emerges on the crash, Lion Air has said the aircraft had experienced problems with sensors used to calculate height and speed in its previous flight. The issue was checked by maintenance workers overnight before the plane was cleared for the ill-fated flight, the airline said.

Divers are scouring a 270 square-mile area under the Java Sea to recover the remains of the plane that plummeted into the shallow waters off Jakarta. The nation's navy said on Oct. 31 that they stumbled on "quite a large" object, about 20 meters long, but that turned out to be a false alarm.

"Our search is focused on the area around the discovery of the black box section yesterday to look for the fuselage, evacuating victims, while also looking for the cockpit voice recorder," the search agency said early Friday.

The nation's transport ministry said it will step up checks on aircraft and ground planes with technical snags that can't be solved. On Thursday, the ministry ordered the suspension of Lion Air managers in charge of quality control, fleet maintenance and an engineer who cleared flight JT610.


Personnel from NTSB, Boeing and Search and Rescue check debris st the Tanjung Priok port on Nov. 1.Photographer: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

The government has vowed "strict sanctions" on Lion Air if a probe by the safety board proves negligence on the part of the airline, the ministry said on Oct. 31.

The tragedy has raised questions about the safety record of a country whose airlines were for years judged too dangerous to fly over Europe. Lion Air was among Indonesian airlines that were banned by the EU from 2007 through 2016, according to the Aviation Safety Network database maintained by the Flight Safety Foundation.

The nation's domestic airline market has boomed in recent years to become the fifth largest in the world. Local airline traffic more than tripled between 2005 and 2017 to 97 million people, according to the CAPA Center for Aviation, and is dominated by flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia and Lion Air Group.

Carriers have struggled with safety issues partly as a result of the pace of that expansion, as well as issues intrinsic to a region of mountainous terrain, equatorial thunderstorms and often underdeveloped aviation infrastructure.

Indonesia hunts sea bed for crashed Lion Air jet's second black box


Rescue workers load up recovered debris of Lion Air flight JT610 onto a truck at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian divers on Friday resumed a search for a second black box amid the sunken wreckage of a nearly new aircraft that slammed into the sea off Jakarta this week, killing all 189 people on board.

Searchers have found only part of one black box and just one passenger has been identified from partial remains after air traffic control lost contact with the plane 13 minutes after it took off on Monday from the capital.

Efforts are now focused on retrieving the second of the two black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are known, the head of Indonesia's transport safety panel said.

"The team have been hearing the 'ping' sound from another black box since two days ago," Soerjanto Tjahjono told Reuters.

The seafloor is just 30 m (98 ft) down, but strong currents and nearby energy pipelines have hampered the search for the aircraft operated by budget carrier Lion Air, which was heading for the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang when it crashed.

While victims' relatives are desperate to know what happened, the investigation of the first crash of a Boeing Co 737 MAX, which only went into service in August, is also the focus of scrutiny by the global aviation industry.

Navy divers on Thursday pulled from the muddy seabed the "crash-survivable memory unit" of one black box, raising hopes its stored data will show what went wrong on flight JT610, whose pilot had received permission to turn back before the crash.

But the damage suffered by the device reflected the severity of the impact, said investigators, adding that they did not yet know which of the black boxes, housed at opposite ends of the plane, it came from.

Indonesia's transport safety panel pledged to move as quickly as possible to download the data, which can take as little as two hours, although analyzing it might require several weeks.

Results of a preliminary investigation will be made public after 30 days, one panel official said.

Indonesia is one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets. Its transport safety panel investigated 137 serious aviation incidents from 2012 to 2017.