Almost 9 months after the Adam Air Boeing 737-4Q8 (PK-KKW) crashed into the sea near Sulawesi (Indonesia), the flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) have been recovered. Both recorders have been retrieved by US company Phoenix International. The FDR was recovered on Monday Aug. 27 at noon and the CVR was recovered on Tuesday Aug. 28 at 10am, found not far from each other at a depth of around 1,800m.
The recorders will now be sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States to determine the cause of the accident. Efforts to recover the so-called “black boxes” have been delayed for months due to disagreements over who should pay. Tatang Kurniadi, chairman of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety declined to comment when asked who was paying the estimated $3m bill for recovering the recorders.
Indonesia is trying to improve its safety image after three aircraft accidents this year prompted the European Union to blacklist all of country’s airlines.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has also downgraded Indonesia’s safety rating to its lowest category.
The Adam Air Boeing 737 Flight 574 plunged into the ocean off the island of Sulawesi on January 1, killing all 102 people on board. The 17-year-old plane was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it vanished in bad weather. The plane made no distress call, although the pilot had reported concerns over crosswinds.