JAKARTA: The crew of an Indonesian passenger jet, which crashed off Jakarta at the weekend with 62 people aboard, did not declare an emergency or report technical problems before it
suddenly plunged into the sea, an investigator said yesterday.
Authorities have so far been unable to explain why the 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after
takeoff, but say they have pinpointed the location of the black boxes.
A recording of conversations with air traffic control pointed to routine exchanges, and there was no communication as the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged about 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) in less than a minute before slamming into the Java Sea, said National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Nurcahyo Utomo.
“It’s like a normal conversation and nothing suspicious,” he told AFP.
“There’s no talk of an emergency or something like that.”
The preliminary data suggested it was ‘most likely’ the plane was intact when it hit the water Saturday, he added.
“But we don’t know at this stage” what caused the crash, Utomo said.
There were 62 Indonesian passengers and crew aboard the half-full flight, including
10 children.
The jet’s captain, Afwan – a 54-year-old father of three who like many Indonesians goes by one name – was a former air force pilot with decades of flying under his belt, according to local media.
Some of the 2,600 personnel working in the recovery effort involving dozens of boats and helicopters are hauling body parts, twisted piece of wreckage and passengers’ clothing from shallow waters about 23 metres deep.
Body bags filled with human remains were being taken to a police morgue where investigators hope to identify victims by matching fingerprints or DNA from their remains to living relatives.
Rapin Akbar, who gave a blood sample to the hospital, had five relatives on board including an older sister, a nephew and his wife and their seven-month-old baby. They were flying back to Pontianak, the city on Indonesia’s section of Borneo island, about 90 minutes away.
Late Monday, authorities identified flight attendant Okky Bisma, 29, as the first confirmed victim after matching fingerprints from a retrieved hand to those in a government identity database.
Divers searched waters off Jakarta for black boxes – cockpit voice and flight data recorders – that could be crucial to help explain why the plane went down.
The devices record information about the speed, altitude and direction of the plane as well as flight crew conversations.
The probe into Saturday’s crash is likely to take months.
Aviation analysts said flight-tracking data showed the plane sharply deviated from its intended course before it went into a steep dive, with bad weather, pilot error and mechanical malfunction among the potential factors.
“Something quite dramatic has happened after takeoff,” said Stephen Wright, professor of aircraft systems at Finland’s Tampere University.
“The airspeed is far too low. The aircraft didn’t accelerate up to the correct speeds for continuous flight.” — AFP