Tag Archives: Lion Air

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)

Indonesia struggles with damaged black box from crashed jet, hunts for second

Rescue workers pick up recovered debris of Lion Air flight JT610 to load onto a truck at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su

By Cindy Silviana

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian divers hunted on Friday for a second black box from an aircraft that crashed into the sea this week with the loss of all 189 people on board, as investigators tried to get data from a partly damaged recorder already found.

The Lion Air Boeing Co 737 MAX, which only went into service in August, crashed on Monday into the Java Sea.

Air traffic control lost contact with it 13 minutes after it took off from the capital, Jakarta, heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

Searchers have found one black box and just one passenger has been identified from partial human remains recovered from the shallow waters.

“We haven’t downloaded the data because there are some broken parts in the black box,” Haryo Satmiko, the deputy of the transport safety panel, said of the flight data recorder found on Thursday, adding that some of the damage was to a socket on the device.

Satimiko told Reuters investigators were awaiting advice from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board or Boeing.

The pilot of flight JT610 had asked for, and received, permission to turn back to Jakarta airport, but what went wrong remains a mystery.

Efforts are now focused on retrieving the second of the two black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are known, the head of Indonesia’s transport safety committee said.

“The team have been hearing the ‘ping’ sound from another black box for two days,” Soerjanto Tjahjono told Reuters.

The sea is only 30 m (98 ft) deep at the crash site but strong currents and nearby energy pipelines have hampered the search for the aircraft operated by the budget carrier.

While victims’ relatives are desperate to know what happened, the investigation of the first crash of a Boeing 737 MAX is also the focus of scrutiny by the global aviation industry.

‘WORK FAST’

Investigators said the damage suffered by the first data device reflected the severity of the impact.

Downloading the data on flight recorders can take as little as two hours but analyzing it can take weeks.

Results of a preliminary investigation will be made public after 30 days, one official on the investigation team said.

President Joko Widodo, visiting the search operation’s headquarters at Jakarta’s port, thanked rescue officials and the military involved and appealed for them to step up the search.

“I ask for you to use all your might, all the technology available, to work fast to find anything else,” he said.

He said he wanted investigators to determine the cause of the crash quickly so “we can determine the next step”.

Relatives of the missing have been looking through personal items recovered from the sea including rows of shoes, backpacks and wallets.

Television footage showed an aircraft wheel being hoisted from the sea on Friday and a diver holding a piece of what appeared to be part of the fuselage bearing the Lion Air logo.

The search and rescue agency said that 65 body bags with human remains had been taken to a police hospital where forensic doctors have been trying to identify victims.

Doctors have been taking DNA samples from relatives.

Indonesia is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets but its safety record has been patchy. Its transport safety panel investigated 137 serious aviation incidents from 2012 to 2017.

(Reporting by Cindy Silviana and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Ed Davies and Fergus Jensen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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)