KNKT Use Underwater Mud Blower Search Black Box CVR Sriwijaya Air SJ-182

JAKARTA - The National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) has not found the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 black box with the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) type. This black box records the conversation between the pilot and the copilot during the flight.

Head of the NTSC Aviation Accident Investigation Subcommittee, Nurcahyo Utomo, said that currently his party was still searching for CVRs around the waters of Lancang Island.

The continued search for the CVR black box after the joint SAR operation was closed has been carried out since January 22, but has still not been found. Soerjanto revealed the difficulty of searching because it was suspected that CVR was buried in mud.

"We suspect that the CVR is submerged under the mud. So, divers will dig, look for manuals, in the zoned areas," said Nurcahyo in a virtual press conference, Wednesday, February 10.

Therefore, the NTSC has been trying to use a mud blower to facilitate the search for CVR black boxes in searches since yesterday.

"Yesterday we were blowing in the morning, but the divers came in the afternoon. So, this morning the divers can see the results again, and the conditions are good. So, the parts in the suspected areas are already visible," he explained.

The crash of the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 plane on the Jakarta-Pontianak route began with lost contact in the Thousand Islands shortly after taking off from Soekarno Hatta Airport on Saturday, January 9, 2020.

Furthermore, the authorities confirmed that the plane crashed around Male Island and Lancang Island, Thousand Islands at around 14:40 WIB.

The number of passengers who took part in the unfortunate flight consisted of 56 aircraft passengers and 6 crew members.

The FDR Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 black box was found on January 12, 2021 by the joint SAR team. At that time, the FDR was immediately taken to the KNKT to download the data. The successfully downloaded data includes 370 parameters, during the operation of approximately 27 hours. In it, includes 18 flights, including flights that have crashed.