A crew member of Indonesian Navy ship KRI Ngurah Rai uses binoculars during a search operation for the victims of Lion Air plane crash in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia. Photo / AP
A crew member of Indonesian Navy ship KRI Ngurah Rai uses binoculars during a search operation for the victims of Lion Air plane crash in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia. Photo / AP
Search teams in Indonesia have located the black box of the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane that plunged into the Java Sea earlier this week, Kompas TV reported.
Indonesian divers retrieved a black box from a Lion Air jet that crashed into the sea this week with 189 aboard and brought it back to a ship on the surface, one of the divers told media on Thursday.
"We dug and we got the black box," from among debris in the mud on the sea floor, the diver, identified as Hendra, told broadcaster Metro TV on board the Baruna Jaya vessel.
Members of police forensic team inspect personal belongings retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610. Photo / AP
The black box was orange in colour and intact, he said, without specifying if the item was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
Earlier today Indonesian officials said they had located a "ping" sound believed to be emitted by the black box.
"The ping sound is clearer," Haryo Satmiko, deputy chairman of the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), told Reuters.
"We've deployed a remote operating vehicle and detected a large chunk on the bottom of the sea. We suspect that is a part of the plane's body."
A team of divers had gone down since 5am (Indonesia time) to map the area where the black box was thought to be, he added, describing sea conditions as normal.
Lion Air flight JT610 lost contact 13 minutes after take-off from the nation's capital and crashed moments later in the nation's worst air disaster in two decades.
Indonesian navy frogmen emerge from the water during the search operation. Photo / AP
The recovery of the black box - which monitor plane's electronics and mechanical systems as well as record the words of the pilots - is the first step toward unraveling the mystery behind the almost new aircraft's dive into the shallow waters of the sea. It is too early to determine what led to the disaster, the carrier's owner Rusdi Kirana has said.
Prior to the accident, the first for a 737 Max 8, the plane on a previous flight had experienced problems with the sensors used to calculate altitude and air speed, according to a spokesman.
Officials say they don't believe anyone on the new Boeing 737 Max 8 flying from Jakarta to the island of Bangka survived the crash into the Java Sea.
Highlighting the gruesome nature of the task, Brigadier-General Hudi Suryanto, in charge of the Automatic Finger Print Identification System (INAFIS), said investigators had identified the first victim on the third day of the search after finding her right hand, the Guardian reported.
The forensic team ran a fingerprint check, which matched data from Indonesia's national ID card system. The results were then crosschecked with documents and photos provided by the victim's family.
"We've examined 48 body bags of victim remains and we could identify one victim through primary identification, which is fingerprints and dental records," Suryanto told reporters.
Members of National Search and Rescue Agency inspect debris retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 is believed to have crashed. Photo / AP
Rescuers load body bags containing debris and remains of the victims of the crashed Lion Air plane during a rescue operation in the waters of Tanjung Karawang. Photo / AP
