Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation said on Wednesday it had finally recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the ocean, nearly three months after a Sriwijaya Air 737 crashed into the Java Sea.
Flight SJ182 crashed into the Java Sea just minutes after take-off from Jakarta on Saturday, 9 January 2021, killing all 62 passengers and crew on board.
Divers were able to find the casing for the crucial cockpit voice recorder (CVR) within days of the crash, however it has taken until now to find the device’s memory unit.
The memory unit of the CVR was reportedly found in relatively shallow but muddy and murky waters that are known to attract strong currents.
It is not yet known if the CVR is in good condition, or if the information it contains can be retrieved, in light of the recorder being removed from its protective casing.
Investigators have long said that recovering the CVR will be key to understanding the cause of the plane crash, and the pilot’s actions taken before the plane began its dive into the sea.
Investigators will pair any data recovered from the CVR with the information already recovered from the jet’s flight data recorder (FDR) to better determine what happened to the plane.
A preliminary report into the crash, released one month after the accident, stated that the 737 had an imbalance in engine thrust due to misaligned throttle levers, which ultimately sent the plane into a sharp roll and finally a dive into the sea.
More to come.
