Foreign
Lion Air ends search for black box, Indonesian investigators plan own probe
Lion Air
Lion Air has ended its search for the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from its Boeing 737 MAX jet, but Indonesian investigators said they plan to launch their own probe as soon as possible.
Java Sea in October
The jet crashed into the Java Sea in October 2018.
Boeing Co
The crash, the world’s first of a Boeing Co 737 MAX jet and the deadliest of 2018, killed all 189 people on board.
Pangkal Pinang
Contact with flight JT610 was lost 13 minutes after it took off on Oct. 29, from the capital Jakarta heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.
The main wreckage and the CVR, one of two so-called black boxes, were not recovered in an initial search.
Lion Air
Lion Air said in December it was funding a 2.64 million dollar search using the offshore supply ship MPV Everest.
Danang Mandala
The search using the ship ended on Saturday, Danang Mandala, the spokesman for Lion Air Group, told Reuters.
National Transportation Safety Commission
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT), however, said on Thursday the agency would start its own search for the black box as soon as feasible.
The CVR is likely to hold vital clues that could give investigators insight into the actions of the pilots.
The KNKT spokesman said negotiations with the Indonesian navy were under way to use a navy ship to re-launch the search for the second black box as soon as possible.
MPV Everest
“It might be as soon as Jan. 9. It won’t be as fancy as the (Lion-subsidised) MPV Everest but will be equipped with a CVR detector and we already have a remote-operated vehicle,” the commission’s spokesman said.
Technologies Inc
The clock is ticking in the hunt for acoustic pings from the L3 Technologies Inc CVR fitted to the jet.
It has a 90-day beacon, the manufacturer’s online brochure shows.
A preliminary report by KNKT focused on airline maintenance and training, and the response of a Boeing anti-stall system to a recently replaced sensor but did not give a cause for the crash.
Lion Air Group
“While we appreciate the fact Lion Air Group brought out the MPV Everest ship, we are disappointed because there’s no actual results,” Anton Sahadi, a relative of a victim of the plane crash, told Reuters by a text message.
Lion Air
“It has been a waste of money, of time and of a sophisticated ship for several weeks, we the families of victims were given only fake promises by Lion Air,” he said, adding he was not confident in the government’s efforts.
Boeing in Chicago
The family of the Indonesian co-pilot of the flight filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Dec. 28, against Boeing in Chicago, adding to litigation piling up against the plane maker.
Lion Air-operated Boeing
The lawsuit alleges that the Lion Air-operated Boeing 737 MAX jet was unreasonably dangerous because its sensors provided inconsistent information to both the pilots and the aircraft.
Boeing in Chicago
At least two other lawsuits have been filed against Boeing in Chicago by relatives of victims.
Lion Air
There has also been some debate among experts over Indonesian authorities’ decision to ask Lion Air to pay for the search that ended on Dec. 29.
Safety experts say air accident investigation agencies typically lead the search for black boxes with public funding to ensure the independence of the process and that it is unusual to hand the task to one of the parties to the investigation.
Lion Air CVR
Indonesian investigators previously said that bureaucratic wrangling and funding problems had hampered the search for the Lion Air CVR and they had turned to the airline for help.
Adam Air
In 2007, efforts to recover the black boxes from a crashed Adam Air jet were delayed by disagreements between Indonesia and the airline over who should bear the cost.
Edited by: Abigael Joshua/Muhammad Suleiman Tola
(NAN)
