Roundup: Indonesia gears up to investigate AirAsia blackbox data at home

Indonesia is gearing up to open and investigate the black box of the crashed AirAsia airliner at home carried out by government-sanctioned National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) as the flight data recorder was managed to be recovered on Monday in an operation carried out by divers from Indonesian navy.

The flight data recorder was retrieved by the divers near the wrecked wing of the Airbus 320-200 at 7:10 a.m. and placed on Indonesian navy ship Banda Aceh before being transported to Jakarta for further investigation.

The divers have been assigned to find the cockpit voice recorder whose location has been detected. The two instruments, which emit signals from their beacons, are useful to reveal cause of an air accident should a calamity occur.

The flight data recorder was stored in a glass box submerged in water to avoid direct contact with air so as to minimize corrosion risk to the device.

KNKT chief Tatang Kurniadi told a press conference in Pangkalan Bun that the flight data recorder was confirmed to be from AirAsia QZ8501 seen from the serial number etched in its body and was still in good condition.

The recorder would immediately be sent to Jakarta and delivered to KNKT laboratory for further investigation. "After arriving in KNKT office, the opening of the devices would have to wait for complete presence of witnesses from several countries that have interests in the investigation,"said Tatang.

Tatang said that in the initial investigation process, KNKT would take out the memory card and extract recorded information and the downloading process may take two to three days. "It has been submerged for two weeks in the water. In the past experience, we were capable of extracting information from black box that had been submerged for eight months,"Tatang said, referring to Adam Air plane crash occurred in January 2007 in Sulawesi waters.

According to him, the blackbox devices will remain under KNKT custody throughout the investigation process and assistance from Airbus, France might also be required. "They would act as the adviser,"the official said.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Military Commander General Moeldoko who closely involved in the search operation was optimistic about finding the remaining wrecks and bodies. "I am optimistic that we will find the cockpit voice recorder and the remaining wrecks and bodies of passengers soon," Moeldoko said.

He added that 81 divers from the navy were assigned to the search operation which has been hampered by big waves and powerful currents.

Besides Indonesia, the search efforts were also joined by the United States, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China.

In its report, Indonesian Climate, Geophysics and Meteorology Agency (BMKG) alleged that QZ8501 flight encountered a storm during its flight from Surabaya to Singapore that led to power loss in its engine.

As of the 16th day, 48 bodies of 162 people aboard the crashed AirAsia plane were recovered with 34 of them having been identified. Most of the undiscovered bodies were believed to be entombed. Endi