Divers find black box from fatal Lion Air flight

Navy divers have found the black box of the Lion Air flight that crashed with 189 people on board.

A policewoman displays shoes, recovered during search operations, from passengers on-board the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 in Jakarta. Picture: AFP

Indonesian navy divers have retrieved the black box of the Lion Air flight JT610 that crashed into the Java Sea Monday with 189 people on board after narrowing down the location of “pings” emitted from its underwater locator beacon, but are still searching for the fuselage.

Investigators are hoping the discovery of the intact black box will help them determine the cause of the country’s worst aviation disaster in decades, but it is not yet clear whether it was the flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder that was found.

Detik news agency, which has reporters on board the Baruna Jaya — one of four sonar-equipped ships involved in the search, quoted a navy diver as saying his team had dived with a “ping locator” and followed the source of the beacon as it got stronger.

“We combed the area and dug through the mud where the signal was strongest and indeed we found the black box,” First Sergeant Hendra told the news agency.

Sergeant Hendra said the dive team had found only small pieces of the plane around the black box, which was buried on its own.

“The condition (of the black box) is still intact. It was at a depth of 30 metres. The underwater current was quite strong but visibility was good. We haven’t found the fuselage, maybe other divers did. I don’t know.”

Earlier yesterday, authorities announced they had returned the remains of Jannatun Cintya Dewi, the first passenger to be positively identified, to her family in Sidoarjo, East Java.

The 24-year-old Jakarta based civil servant with the Indonesian Department of Energy and Mineral Resources was buried this morning in a small village cemetery, her grave covered in pink white and green flower petals.

Authorities say all 189 passengers and crew on board the Lion Air Being 737 Max 8, including one child and two infants, are presumed dead.