Two Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 SAR Team Ships Collided In The Thousand Islands

Evacuation of Sriwijaya AIr SJ 182 Aircraft (Photo: Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Basarnas Operations Director, Brig. Gen. Rasman, said that two SAR team ships searching for Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 collided this morning. The ship is owned by Basarnas and belongs to the Ministry of Transportation.

"Indeed, there was a clash at dawn or early morning. There was a collision between the Basarnas ship and the Maritime Transportation Ministry (Directorate General of Transportation) ship," Rasman told reporters, Tuesday, January 19.

Rasman said that the weather today at the crash site of the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 plane is not good. The search ships pulled over slightly and lowered or anchored. However, the ships belonging to Basarnas and Kemenhub are close together, so they experience clashes when anchoring.

"Due to the bad weather, the currents were too fast. At the time the anchor was out of control, it was too close, so it had a collision. That's all," Rasman explained.

Even though there were a few marks of damage to the ship due to the collision, Rasman said the two ships could still be used to carry out searches.

"The ship is still in the middle of the sea. The collision does not interfere with operations," he concluded.

For information, in today's search, the operation to search for victims and materials for the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft this morning was hampered by the harsh weather.

Strong winds around the waters of the Thousand Islands cause high waves to appear. Thus, making it difficult for the SAR team to search.

The plan, the joint SAR team is still searching for aircraft victims, aircraft engine parts, and black boxes with the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) type.

Yesterday, the SAR team found the CVR black box casing. However, the casing was detached from the core material that could dismantle the cause of the crash, namely the memory section.

To date, the total search findings for Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 are 310 body bags containing body parts. Then, there are 115 aircraft materials, with details of 60 small bags containing aircraft debris and 55 large aircraft pieces. Then, one black box with the type of flight data recorder (FDR).