JAKARTA – A multi-national salvage team has retrieved the black box of the Adam Air airliner that crashed in waters off Sulawesi at the start of the year en route from Surabaya to Manado.
The Jakarta Post said it is hoped the black box will reveal the causes of the January 1 accident that killed all 102 people on board.
“The team has succeeded in salvaging the black box, which consists of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the bottom of the Majene sea (West Sulawesi),” National Transportation Safety Commission chairman Tatang Kurniadi said.
Investigators believe that the recorders are still ‘readable’ despite nearly eight months underwater.
“But it will take months for experts at the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington to analyse the information.”
U.S. vessel company Phoenix International assisted the team with a robotic salvaging system, Tatang said.
The Indonesian Navy had previously tried to find the box but did not have the necessary equipment.
The Indonesian government has spent more than US$2 million to find the black box.
Transportation Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal said that finding the cause of the failure was important in order to prevent future accidents.
A string of airplane accidents in Indonesia, including a Garuda Indonesia jetliner crash in Yogyakarta in March that killed 21, have prompted the European Union to prohibit Indonesian airlines from flying in EU airspace.
A delegation from Indonesia is currently in Brussels to convince EU country members that local civil aviation authorities have made safety improvements
