AirAsia jetliner’s black boxes found

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia – Divers retrieved one black box and located the other underwater today from the AirAsia plane that crashed more than two weeks ago, a key development that will help investigators unravel what caused the aircraft to plummet into the Java Sea less than halfway into its flight.

The cockpit voice recorder was found just hours after officials announced the data flight recorder had been pulled from beneath a piece of the aircraft’s wing and brought to the surface, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, operation coordinator at the national search and rescue agency.

However, he said it remained lodged beneath heavy wreckage, and divers were struggling to free it at a depth of 105 feet.

Divers began zeroing in on the sites a day earlier after three Indonesian ships picked up intense pings from the area, but they were unable to see the devices due to strong currents and poor visibility.

The two instruments, which emit signals from their beacons, are vital to understanding what brought Flight 8501 down on Dec. 28, killing all 162 people on board. They provide essential information including the plane’s vertical and horizontal speeds along with engine temperature and final conversations between the captain and co-pilot.

The flight data recorder was lodged in debris from the wing at a depth of about 100 feet, Supriyadi said. The cockpit recorder was located a few yards away.

Once the second device is recovered, both boxes will be taken to Jakarta, the capital, for analysis. It could take up to two weeks to download their information, said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the National Committee for Safety Transportation.