Tag Archives: flight recorder

Indonesian divers find crashed Lion Air jet’s second black box

FILE PHOTO - Wreckage recovered from Lion Air flight JT610, that crashed into the sea, lies at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, October 29, 2018. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo

By Cindy Silviana

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian authorities on Monday said they will immediately begin to download contents of a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from a Lion Air jet that crashed into the sea near Jakarta more than two months ago, killing all 189 people on board.

The crash was the world’s first of a Boeing Co 737 MAX jet and the deadliest of 2018, and the recovery of the aircraft’s second black box from the Java Sea north of Jakarta on Monday may provide an account of the last actions of the doomed jet’s pilots.

“We have our own laboratory and personnel to do it,” Haryo Satmiko, deputy chief of the transportation safety committee, told Reuters.

Satmiko said it had in the past taken up to three months to download, analyze and transcribe the contents of recorders.

Contact with flight JT610 was lost 13 minutes after it took off on Oct. 29 from the capital, Jakarta, heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

A preliminary report by Indonesia’s transport safety commission focused on airline maintenance and training, as well as the response of a Boeing anti-stall system and a recently replaced sensor, but did not give a cause for the crash.

A group of relatives of victims urged the transportation safety committee to reveal “everything that was recorded” and to work independently.

Navy Lieutenant Colonel Agung Nugroho told Reuters a weak signal from the recorder was detected several days ago and it was found buried deep in soft mud on the seafloor in water about 30 meters (98 ft) deep.

“We don’t know what damage there is but it has obvious scratches on it,” Nugroho said.

Pictures supplied by an official from the transportation agency showed chipped bright orange paint on the CVR memory unit, but no major dents.

Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the safety committee, told reporters it should take no more than five days to download the data, but if there was a problem the CVR would be sent to the manufacturer.

“We hope it can be done as soon as possible because all the Boeing operators are waiting,” said Utomo, adding that investigators hoped to complete the full report within a year of the crash.

With the recovery of the CVR, officials said there was no plan to continue searching for other parts of the wrecked plane, including an angle of attack sensor that was suspected to have been faulty.

The navy’s Nugroho said human remains had been found near the location of the CVR, about 50 meters from where the crashed jet’s other black box, the flight data recorder (FDR), was found three days after the crash.

Investigators brought in a navy ship last week after a 10-day, 38 billion rupiah ($2.70 million), an effort funded by Lion Air failed to find the recorder. Bureaucratic wrangling and funding problems hampered the initial search.

The L3 Technologies Inc CVR was designed to send acoustic pings for 90 days after a crash in water, according to an online brochure from the manufacturer.

That would mean that after Jan. 27, investigators could have faced a far bigger problem in finding the CVR buried along with much of the wreckage deep in mud on the sea floor..

Boeing said in a statement on Monday that it was taking “every measure” to fully support this investigation.

“As the investigation continues, Boeing is working closely with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as a technical advisor to support Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee,” the planemaker said in a statement.

Since the crash, Lion Air has faced scrutiny over its maintenance and training standards, and relatives of victims have filed at least three lawsuits against Boeing.

(Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Fergus Jensen and Tabita Diela; Editing by Robert Birsel and Darren Schuettler)

Indonesian searchers find black box from crashed jet on sea floor

Chief of National Search and Rescue Agency Muhammad Syaugi shows a part of the black box of Lion Air's flight JT610 airplane, on Baruna Jaya ship, in the north sea of Karawang, Indonesia, November 1, 2018. Antara Foto/Muhammad Adimaja via REUTERS

By Cindy Silviana and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian authorities on Thursday retrieved a flight data recorder from a Lion Air jet that crashed and broke apart in shallow sea near the capital, Jakarta, this week, killing all 189 people on board.

The country’s second-deadliest air disaster since 1997 has prompted renewed concern about Indonesia’s patchy aviation safety record, and the government has said Lion Air will face tougher safety regulation.

Investigations into the world’s first crash of a Boeing Co 737 MAX, introduced into commercial service last year, will be scrutinized by the global aviation industry.

“Hopefully, this can unveil the mystery behind the plane crash,” Indonesia’s transportation safety committee chief Soerjanto Tjahjono told a news conference at Jakarta’s main port after receiving the device, known as a black box.

The data it holds should provide clues to what went wrong with the plane, which had only been in service since August.

It lost contact with ground staff just 13 minutes after taking off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

The pilot had asked to return to base shortly after take-off, and ground control officials had approved the request.

A navy diver told broadcaster Metro TV on board a search vessel his team found the orange-colored box intact in debris on the muddy seafloor.

Indonesia’s transportation safety committee (KNKT) will analyze its data in Jakarta, which could take up to two weeks.

Searchers have yet to find the second black box containing recordings of cockpit conversations. Strong currents have hampered search efforts, complicated by the presence of energy pipelines in the area.

The discovery of the black box may provide some relief to grieving relatives. But hopes are fading of finding a large section of fuselage intact with bodies, easily retrievable, inside.

The commander of the navy divers involved in the search was quoted by the Kompas.com news portal as saying divers had found many bodies. But only one has been identified.

“What is important for us is to get more information about the victims because having their remains back is important for us so we can bury them properly,” said Ade Inyo, whose brother in law was on the flight.

MORE INSPECTIONS, SAFETY REVIEW

The investigation will be carried out with help from Boeing, General Electric and the Federal Aviation Federation, officials have said.

It will also focus on four of Lion Air’s staff including its technical director who were suspended by Indonesia’s transportation ministry on Wednesday amid speculation the aircraft was not airworthy.

“For now, we will focus on two primary causes,” KNKT deputy chief Haryo Satmiko told Reuters, referring to equipment and the people who flew, maintained and managed the aircraft.

The transport ministry suspended for 120 days Lion Air’s maintenance and engineering director, fleet maintenance manager and the release engineer who gave the jet permission to fly on Monday, it said in a press release.

Founded in 1999, the privately owned budget carrier’s aircraft have been involved in at least 15 safety incidents and it has faced tougher international safety restrictions than other Indonesian airlines.

It will now be subjected to more intensive “on-ramp” inspections compared with other airlines, authorities said.

President Joko Widodo has also ordered a review of all regulations relating to flight safety.

Indonesia is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. Its transportation safety committee investigated 137 serious aviation incidents from 2012 to 2017.

Lion Air said the aircraft that crashed had been airworthy and the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 hours of flying time between them.

But according to the transport safety committee, the plane had technical problems on its previous flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an issue over “unreliable airspeed”.

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait has acknowledged reports of technical problems with the aircraft but said maintenance had been carried out “according to procedure” before it was cleared to fly again.

Lion Air’s only other fatal accident was in 2004 when an MD-82 crashed upon landing at Solo City, killing 25 of the 163 people on board, according to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network.

In April, the airline announced a firm order to buy 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 narrowbody jets with a list price of $6.24 billion. It is one of the U.S. planemaker’s largest customers globally and was the first carrier globally to take delivery of the 737 MAX last year.

(Reporting by Jakarta bureau; Writing by Fergus Jensen and Ed Davies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel)

Second flight recorder retrieved from crashed EgyptAir flight

People light candles during a candlelight vigil for the victims of EgyptAir flight 804, at the Cairo Opera

CAIRO (Reuters) – A second flight recorder has been retrieved from the crashed EgyptAir flight MS804, containing data from aircraft systems which could shed light on what brought the plane down last month, Egyptian investigators said on Friday.

An Egyptian committee investigating the crash into the eastern Mediterranean Sea made the announcement a day after search teams found the cockpit voice recorder in a breakthrough for investigators seeking to explain what caused the plane to go down, killing all 66 people on board.

The Airbus A320 crashed early on May 19 on its way from Paris to Cairo. The two blackbox recorders are crucial to explaining what went wrong.

The Egyptian investigation committee said preparations were under way to transfer the two flight recorders to Alexandria where they will be received by an official from the general prosecutor’s office and investigators.

No group has claimed responsibility for bringing down the plane, but investigation sources have said that it was too early to rule out any causes, including terrorism.

If intact, the cockpit recorder should reveal pilot conversations and any cockpit alarms, as well as other clues such as engine noise. But crash experts say it may provide only limited insight into what caused the crash, especially if the crew was confused or unable to diagnose any faults.

For that, the second black box containing data from the aircraft systems is needed.

The crash is the third blow since October to Egypt’s travel industry, which is still suffering from the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

A Russian plane crashed in the Sinai Peninsula last October, killing all 224 people on board in an attack claimed by Islamic State. In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked by a man wearing a fake suicide belt. No one was hurt.

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Alison Williams and Dominic Evans)