Jakarta: Indonesian divers appear to have found the flight recorder from the crashed Lion Air flight JT610 on the ocean floor.
Local media website Detik.com is reporting that the black box was found on the sea floor at about 10am local time (2pm AEDT) on Thursday, at a depth of about 30 metres.
Navy diver First Sergeant Hendra said the underwater currents were quite strong during the operation and that the searchers had only been able to find small pieces of debris on the ocean floor.
"We narrowed [the search] area then at the site where devices [remotely operated vehicles] showed sensitive [signals] we dug and it turned out we found the black box,” he said.
The discovery of the so-called black box will form a crucial piece of the investigation into why the Lion Air flight crashed.
Black boxes are mandatory on all aircraft and record both flight data from the plane and audio in aeroplane cockpits. Taken together, this information will help explain what happened to JT610.
Indonesian TV stations on Thursday showed images of the device which was transferred from an inflatable vessel to a ship in a large white container.
Two navy divers described finding the device and bringing it to the surface. One said the fuselage of the plane had also been seen.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane that crashed on Monday killed all 189 people on board, and there are growing questions being asked about Lion Air's handling of the aircraft, given – according to flight data – it had experienced technical difficulties on the day before the crash.
Also on Thursday, the Indonesian Transport ministry officially asked more members of Lion Air's management to be relieved of duty so they could assist with the investigation. Those stood aside include the director of Maintenance and Engineering, the Quality Control Manager, the Fleet Maintenance Management Manager and the Release Engineer.
With AP
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