Indonesian authorities on Thursday said that the black box of the Lion Air Flight JT610 that crashed in the Java Sea on Monday, killing all 189 people on board, was retrieved by a diver.
“Based on an initial information, yes it (black box) has been found,” Transport Ministry spokesman Baitul Ihwan told Xinhua news agency.
However, the spokesman did not specify whether it was a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder of the almost new Boeing 737 Max 8 jet plane that crashed into the waters of Tanjung Karawang shortly after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta airport.
Rescuers and divers continued their search mission on Thursday by focusing on the site where the sounds of ping locators, installed in both of the black boxes, were detected by the remote operating vehicle deployed underwater from a ship, according to the head of national search and rescue office Muhammad Syaugi.
The search site is located in Tanjung Karawang waters off the province, about 400 metres northwest of the position of coordinate, where the aircraf last communicated with air traffic controller.
So far, 49 body bags with human remains of at least a dozen people have been retrieved but none of the victims were identified, even with DNA samples collected from the families.
The Lion Air flight JT 610 flown by Indian captain Bhavye Suneja disappeared from the radars on Monday morning, 13 minutes after it took off.
Before the plane began descending at high speed from about 3,000 feet, the pilot had requested permission to land but did not send a distress signal.
