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CatastropheAsia

Indonesia plane crash: Cockpit recorder found

March 31, 2021

The voice recorder could provide vital clues to what the pilots were saying when Flight SJ 182 crashed into the Java Sea in January. All 62 people on board were killed in the crash.

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Indonesian officials carry the cockpit voice recorder from a crashed Sriwijaya Air passenger plane
The cockpit voice recorder could provide the probe into the crash with vital cluesImage: Willy Kurniawan/REUTERS

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from a crashed Indonesian Sriwijaya Air passenger plane has been found, the country's transport ministry said on Wednesday.

The recorder could provide vital additional clues for investigators looking into the cause of the fatal incident.

The 26-year-old Boeing 737-500 plunged into the Java Sea on January 9, minutes after takeoff from Indonesian capital Jakarta. All 62 crew and passengers on board were killed.

Search for the voice recorder

Divers found the casing and beacon of the CVR within days of the crash, but it took until Tuesday evening for them to locate the memory unit under a meter of mud.

Indonesian officials carry the cockpit voice recorder from a crashed Sriwijaya Air passenger plane
It could take up to a week for investigators to read the data on the voice recorderImage: Willy Kurniawan/REUTERS

"We found the CVR last night. It will take about three days to one week to decipher the data," Indonesia National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) head Soerjanto Tjahjono said.

"After that we'll transcribe and match it to FDR [Flight Data Recorder]. Without a CVR, in the Sriwijaya 182 case it would be very difficult to determine the cause."

What do we know about the crash?

Divers had been searching the Java Sea for the missing voice recorder — one of the plane's two "black boxes" —  which records flight crew conversations.

A flight data recorder was earlier plucked from the seabed.

A preliminary report into the crash last month said Indonesian pilots had reported multiple problems with the aging jet's throttle system before the fatal crash.

But investigators at the time said it was too early to pinpoint an exact cause.

kmm/rs (AFP, Reuters)