Jakarta - Divers retrieved
the crashed AirAsia plane's second black box from the bottom of the Java Sea on
Tuesday, giving investigators essential tools to piece together what brought
Flight 8501 down.
The cockpit voice recorder
was freed from beneath the heavy ruins of a wing early in the morning from a
depth of about 30 metres, a day after the aircraft's flight data recorder was
recovered, said Tonny Budiono, sea navigation director at the Transportation
Ministry.
"Thank God," he
said. "This is good news for investigators to reveal the cause of the
plane crash."
Analysis
The device will be flown to
the capital, Jakarta, to be downloaded and analysed with the other box. Since
it records in a two-hour loop, all discussions between the captain and co-pilot
should be available.
The plane crashed 42
minutes into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore on 28 December.
All 162 people on board were killed, but only 48 bodies have been recovered so
far.
The find is the latest
boost in the slow-moving hunt to scour the shallow, murky stretch of ocean.
Over the weekend, the tail
of the Airbus A320 was recovered, emblazoned with the carrier's red-and-white
cursive logo. The black boxes are housed inside the tail, but were missing when
the wreckage was pulled to the surface.
The devices were soon
located after three Indonesian ships detected two strong pings being emitted
from their beacons, about 20 metrrs apart. Strong currents, large waves and
blinding silt have hindered divers' efforts throughout the 17-day search, but
they took advantage of calmer early morning conditions on both days to extract
the instruments.
The information pulled from
the black boxes - which are actually orange - will likely be vital. Designed to
survive extreme heat and pressure, they should provide investigators with a
second-by-second timeline of the flight.
Material
The voice recorder captures
all conversations between the pilots and with air traffic controllers, as well
as any noises heard in the cockpit, including possible alarms or explosions.
The flight data recorder saves information on the position and condition of
almost every major part in the plane, including altitude, airspeed, direction,
engine thrust, the rate of ascent or descent and what up-or-down angle the
plane was pointed.
"There's like 200-plus
parameters they record," said aviation expert John Goglia, a former US
National Transportation Safety Board member. "It's going to provide us an
ocean of material."
In their last contact with
air-traffic controllers, the pilots of the AirAsia jet asked to climb from 32 000
feet to 38 000 feet to avoid threatening clouds, but were initially denied
permission because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the plane dropped
off the radar. No distress signal was received.
Searchers also have been
trying to locate the main section of the plane's cabin, where many of the
victims' corpses are believed to be entombed.
Decomposition is making
identification more difficult for desperate families waiting to bury their
loved ones. Nearly all passengers and crew were Indonesian.
"I still believe many
victims remain trapped there, and we must find them," said General
Moeldoko, Indonesia's military chief, who uses one name.
