Search Period Is Extended, CVR Black Box Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 Has Not Been Found

SAR team in search operation for Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The SAR team from the Basarnas Special Group has officially extended the search period for victims and materials for the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft from today to Monday, January 18 next week.

This refers to the provisions of Law Number 29 of 2014 concerning Search and Help, which states that the search period for victims lasts seven days and can be extended according to the needs of the search.

"I extended the joint SAR operation in order to search or evacuate Sriwijaya Air SJ-182. That means, until Monday. After that, we re-evaluate and decide what to do next," said Basarnas Head Marshal Madya Bagus Puruhito, Friday, January 15. .

Until yesterday evening at 20.00 WIB, the joint SAR team managed to find 33 body bags containing the victim's body parts. Then, there are an additional 6 bags of aircraft small debris and 11 large plane pieces.

So, the total that has been obtained during the 7 days of searching is 272 body bags, 46 body parts, and 50 large pieces of aircraft.

In addition to searching for victims of the Jakarta-Pontianak route that crashed in the Thousand Islands, the joint team is still looking for the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Boeing type aircraft. Kabasarnas will check the news of the finding of the SJ-182 CVR fragments.

"Indeed, I also heard that part of the CVR unit was found. Later we will confirm it to the head of the KNKT who carried out this search, "said Bagus.

"So we are currently prioritizing the search for body parts of victims by not neglecting or still considering the aircraft material or parts of the CVR as important," he added.

Follow-up on Findings of the FDR Black Box

The Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 flight data recorder (FDR) black box has been found since Tuesday, January 12. Now, the recorded flight records have been brought to the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) for analysis.

Chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono said that the data in the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) of the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft that were found had been downloaded successfully. "There are 330 parameters and all are in good condition. We are currently studying it," said Soerjanto.

Before the process of downloading data from FDR, he said, there were several steps that had to be passed, such as cleaning. This process is also carried out twice, using distilled water and salt water.

"We cleaned the memory unit from the remnants of salt that stuck because it was submerged in sea water," he said.

Furthermore, the NTSC is still waiting for the joint team to find the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR). Because this part is also important in the process of investigating the causes of the crash of the plane in the waters of the Thousand Islands.

5 Identified Sriwijaya Air victims

Meanwhile, the Police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team again managed to identify five Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 passengers who crashed in the waters of the Thousand Islands. So that the total number of identified passengers currently reaches 17 people.

"The results of today's reconciliation have identified five victims," said Karo Penmas, Police Public Relations Division, Brigadier General Rusdi Hartono.

The five passengers who were identified were:

1. Toni Ismail, male, 59 years old

2. Dinda Amelia, female, 15 years

3. Isti Yudha Prastika, 34-year-old female who is an extra flight attendant

4. Putri Wahyuni, female, 25 years old

5. Rahmawati, female, 59 years

Of these five people, the DVI Team succeeded in identifying in two ways, namely by matching fingerprints like the previous identification and using DNA samples.

Two people were identified using fingerprints, namely Isti Yudha Prastika who was registered as passenger number 33 on the manifest and Toni Ismail who was on number 47 in the manifest.

Meanwhile, three other people, namely Rahmawati, Putri Wahyuni, and Dinda Amelia, were identified using DNA samples.