Indonesian Navy discovers flight recorders of crashed plane

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Overwhelming searches for the flight recorders of recently-crashed Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 were shed light three days after the accident, when the Indonesian Navy announced that the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Boeing 737-524 had been discovered.

Situated between the Laki and Lancang Island, around the vicinity of the Thousand Islands, the Navy discovered the FDR in the afternoon. The FDR has initially been “found” according to frogmen, however it was determined that they were merely pieces of it. The search thus continued. The full, intact FDR was officially found at 16:40 WIB. After being transported to the Rigel warship, the FDR was later taken by sea riders of KOPASKA and the Navy, to be brought to Terminal 2 of the Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT), part of the Port of Tanjung Priok, Jakarta. There, it will be obtained by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) for investigation.

Shortly after, the search for the CVR starts This time, it is searched without utilization of underwater locator beacons (UBL) or other guide signals, as the location has been previously identified. This is almost similar with the case of Lion Air Flight 610 nearly three years earlier, wherein the FDR was discovered, but the CVR was found later on. In a livestream at the President Secretariat YouTube channel, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi said that he will quickly coordinate the search of the CVR, upon command from President of Indonesia Joko Widodo. Previously, the search has been narrowed to a triangle of 140×100 meters, after the pings from the beacons were localized.

Bagus Puruhito, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Badan Nasional Pencarian dan Pertolongan, BASARNAS), said that the focus on searching the CVR does not affect the focus on searching the passengers, most likely victims, or the Saturday crash. “We beg the prayers of Military, National Police, and all stakeholders involved [in the search]. And we hope that [the bodies and CVR] be retrieved quickly,” he added.

At the same time, four body bags of body parts of the victims of the flight have been brought to JICT. In total, 78 bags have been brought.

3 days on the quest to find the CVR were paid back by the discovery of the casing and beacon of it. However, the memory file of the CVR containing the full transcript of sounds within the cockpit are still being searched. It was affirmed that the file will be discovered soon. The Indonesian Military expressed surprise on the memory being separated from its embodiment, saying that this might need attention from Boeing.

[edit]

Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 was an Indonesian domestic flight between Jakarta’s Soekarno–Hatta International Airport and Pontianak’s Supadio International Airport. On January 9, 2021, at 14:40 WIB, Citra, the name of the aircraft operating the flight, under the registration number PK-CLC, crashed in the Java Sea just four minutes after departure. Prior, the flight was delayed due to bad weather.

Several fishermen report that the plane went down as fast as lightning, and that they nearly thought it was a tsunami. Media outlets frequently cite tracking website Flightradar24, which recorded that Citra reached 10,900 feet (it was assigned to climb up to 13,000) when it plummeted super rapidly in just 20 seconds. It last recorded altitude is at 250 feet, which considering its speed, is just milliseconds before it hit the ocean. It also swerved off-course; air traffic control (ATC) queried this abnormality to the pilots but received no response.

Manifest data confirmed that the flight carried 62 passengers: 50 passengers, 6 active crew, and 6 deadheading crew. 7 passengers are children, whilst 3 are infants; others are adults. All of them were of Indonesian nationality. Meanwhile, the Aviation Safety Network recorded the history of the 1994-built aircraft, which was previously operated by Continental Airlines and United Airlines. All accidents were due to bird strikes. Between March and October 2020, it was stored for repair, before returning back to service on December 19.

[edit]