Indonesian navy divers on Tuesday retrieved one of the black boxes of a B-737-500 jetliner that crashed into the sea off Jakarta on Saturday with 62 people aboard, the country's military chief announced.
Indonesian Defense Force Commander Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto told a press conference the flight data recorder had been found by the navy divers at 4:40 p.m.
He said the divers also found the underwater acoustic beacon, a device attached to aviation flight recorders, of the cockpit voice recorder, but the device itself has not been found.
"The operation has not been completed," the military chief said. "The cockpit voice recorder...can also be found."
National Transportation Safety Committee chief Soerjanto Tjahjono, who received the flight data recorder from the military chief, expressed hope that the recorder's contents can be downloaded within two to five days.
"Hopefully, it will take place smoothly and can immediately reveal the mystery behind the crash," the senior flight investigator said.
An early investigation by the committee showed that the Boeing jetliner's flight system was functioning at the time of impact.
Data from Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 that had been recorded until the plane descended to 250 feet above the water's surface before the crash on Saturday have "indicated that the flight system was functioning," Tjahjono said.
"Based on this, we suspect that the engines were still working just before it crashed into the sea," he added.
The safety board chief also said field data have shown the pieces of the plane's wreckage found by rescuers only covered a 40-square-kilometer area, supporting "our hypothesis that the plane didn't explode upon impact with the water."
The aircraft took off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at 2:36 p.m. Saturday, bound for the West Kalimantan provincial capital of Pontianak, and a minute later requested to ascend to 29,000 feet.
However, at 2:40 p.m., air traffic control asked the pilot why the plane was heading northwest instead of on its expected path. A few seconds later, it disappeared from radar.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed that after taking off, the plane climbed to 10,900 feet in approximately four minutes, but then went into a steep descent over the next 21 seconds, with the last received data placing it at 250 feet above the water's surface.
The preliminary findings were issued as the search for victims and wreckage entered its fourth day.
On Tuesday, about 3,600 rescuers, 13 planes and 54 ships were deployed to recover human remains as well as suspected debris from the aircraft. Four bodies have been identified, but no survivors have been found.
Among the 62 people on board the plane were 10 children, including three infants, and 12 crew members. All were Indonesians.
Established in 2003, Sriwijaya Air is the country's third-largest airline and is regarded as having a good safety record. Before Saturday's crash, it had been involved in five minor incidents, none resulting in casualties.
The crash was the second involving a B-737 aircraft in Indonesia in recent years. In October 2018, a B-737 MAX 8 operated by low-cost carrier Lion Air crashed off the northeast coast of Jakarta immediately after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers and crew.
The Lion Air incident, along with another involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft in 2019, caused the grounding of B-737 MAX airliners. The B-737-500 model involved in Saturday's crash was an earlier generation not affected by the grounding.
Among the 62 people on board the plane were 10 children, including three infants, and 12 crew members. All were Indonesians.
Established in 2003, Sriwijaya Air is the country's third-largest airline and is regarded as having a good safety record. Before Saturday's crash, it had been involved in five minor incidents, none resulting in casualties.
The crash was the second involving a B-737 aircraft in Indonesia in recent years. In October 2018, a B-737 MAX 8 operated by low-cost carrier Lion Air crashed off the northeast coast of Jakarta immediately after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers and crew.
The Lion Air incident, along with another involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft in 2019, caused the grounding of B-737 MAX airliners. The B-737-500 model involved in Saturday's crash was an earlier generation not affected by the grounding.
