Indonesia recovers crashed Sriwijaya Air jet's cockpit voice recorder

AFP

Divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from a Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta in January.

,Indonesia's air accident investigator said it could take up to a week to be able to listen to the recording.

The recorder could help investigators understand the actions taken by the pilots of the jet, which crashed on January 9 killing all 62 people on board.

A preliminary report released in February said the plane had an imbalance in engine thrust that eventually led it into a sharp roll and then a final dive into the sea. The report included information from the flight data recorder (FDR).

Divers found the casing and beacon of the CVR from the 26-year-old Boeing Co 737-500 within days of the crash but had been searching for the memory unit in relatively shallow but muddy waters, where currents are sometimes strong.

The CVR of Srwijiaya flight 182 was located late on Tuesday, Indonesia's transport minister told a media conference. A navy official said it had been found under a metre of mud.

"We will take CVR to lab for reading, about three days to one week," Indonesia National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) head Soerjanto Tjahjono said. "After that we'll transcribe and match it to FDR. Without a CVR, in the Sriwijaya 182 case it would be very difficult to determine the cause."