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 But there was confusion about what happened in the final moments
of Flight QZ8501, which crashed off the Indonesian coast on Dec. 28,
with one official saying the plane probably exploded before hitting
the water and another disputing that theory.
The Airbus A320-200 airliner lost contact with air traffic control
in bad weather less than halfway into a two-hour flight from
Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.
"At 7:11, we succeeded in lifting the part of the black box known as
the flight data recorder," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the
National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters at a news
conference.
The second so-called black box, containing the cockpit voice
recorder, is located about 20 meters away from where the flight data
recorder was found, but divers have not yet been able to get to it.
 "(The cockpit voice recorder) seems to be under a wing, which is
quite heavy," said Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the search
and rescue agency. "So we will use air bags to lift it. This will be
done tomorrow."
The black boxes contain a wealth of data that will be crucial for
investigators piecing together the sequence of events that led to
the airliner plunging into the sea.
Supriyadi said the wreckage indicated that the plane likely
"experienced an explosion" before hitting the water due to a
significant change in air pressure.
He said the left side of the plane seemed to have disintegrated,
pointing to a change in pressure that could have caused an
explosion.
"NO DATA" TO SUPPORT THEORY
Supporting this possibility, he added, was the fact that fishermen
in the area had reported hearing an explosion and saw smoke above
the water.
But another official disputed the likelihood of a blast.
"There is no data to support that kind of theory," said Santoso
Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety
Committee.
The flight data recorder was brought by helicopter to Pangkalan Bun,
the southern Borneo town that has been the base for the search
effort, and then flown to Jakarta for analysis.
The black box looked to be in good condition, said Tatang Kurniadi,
the head of the transport safety committee.
Investigators may need up to a month to get a complete reading of
the data.
"The download is easy, probably one day. But the reading is more
difficult ... could take two weeks to one month," the NTSC's head
investigator, Mardjono Siswosuwarno, said.
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Over the weekend, three vessels detected "pings" that were believed
to be from the black boxes, but strong winds, powerful currents and
high waves hampered search efforts.
Dozens of Indonesian navy divers took advantage of calmer weather on
Monday to retrieve the flight recorder and search for the fuselage
of the Airbus.
Forty-eight bodies have been retrieved from the Java Sea and brought
to Surabaya for identification. Searchers believe more bodies will
be found in the plane's fuselage.
Relatives of the victims have urged authorities to make finding the
remains of their loved ones the priority.
"I told our soldiers that the search isn't over yet," Armed Forces
chief General Moeldoko told reporters. "I am sure the remaining
victims are in the body of the plane. So we need to find those."
Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by the Malaysia-based AirAsia
budget group, has come under pressure from authorities in Jakarta
since the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier's
Surabaya-Singapore licence for flying on a Sunday, for which it did
not have permission. However, the ministry has said this had no
bearing on the crash.
President Joko Widodo said the disaster exposed widespread problems
in the management of air travel in Indonesia.
(Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana, Eveline Danubrata, Fergus
Jensen, Gayatri Suroyo and Nilufar Rizki in JAKARTA; Writing by
Randy Fabi; Editing by Paul Tait, Alex Richardson and Mike
Collett-White)
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