The flight data recorder from the doomed AirAsia airliner arrived in Jakarta on Monday and is in good condition, while the cockpit voice recorder has been found but not yet recovered.
Meanwhile, Indonesian officials offered different theories on the plane’s final moments.
Search-and-rescue official Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi said the Airbus A320 probably “experienced an explosion” before hitting the Java Sea because of a significant change in air pressure, Reuters reported.
Fishermen in the area also had reported hearing an explosion and saw smoke above the water, he added.
But another official disputed the likelihood of an explosion on the aircraft, which went down Dec. 28 with 162 people aboard.
“There is no data to support that kind of theory,” said Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, Reuters reported.
The data recorder was located under the wreckage of one of the wings, said Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency, Reuters reported.
The device was taken by helicopter to Pangkalan Bun in southern Borneo, where the search effort is based, and then flown to Jakarta for analysis. It looked to be in good condition, said Tatang Kurniadi, chief of the transport safety committee, Reuters reported.
It could take up to a month for investigators to get a complete reading of the data.
The voice recorder remains under debris, said Mardjono Siswosuwarno, who heads the crash probe.
“(The cockpit voice recorder) seems to be under a wing, which is quite heavy,” Supriyadi said. “So we will use air bags to lift it. This will be done tomorrow.”
The two devices — also called the black boxes — likely hold vital clues to what brought down the airliner as it flew from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore.
“There’s like 200-plus parameters they record,” said John Goglia, an aviation safety expert and former US National Transportation Safety Board member, the Associated Press reported. “It’s going to provide us an ocean of material.”
A total of 48 bodies have been retrieved so far and taken to Surabaya for identification. More bodies are believed to be in the fuselage.
Relatives have urged authorities to focus on finding the remains of their loved ones.
Search efforts have been hampered by bad weather and harsh conditions — with silt and sand drastically reducing visibility for divers.
“I told our soldiers that the search isn’t over yet,” Gen. Moeldoko said, Reuters reported. “I am sure the remaining victims are in the body of the plane. So we need to find those.”
AirAsia’s license to fly from Surabaya to Singapore has been suspended because the flight was made on a Sunday, for which it was not authorized. The transport ministry said this did not play a role in the crash.
With Post Wires