Foreign help sought to retrieve black boxes

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 01/27/2007 3:50 PM

Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo and Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Makassar

The government will ask for international assistance in retrieving the flight data recorders from a missing Adam Air jetliner, which have been detected some 2,000 meters beneath the Majene sea in West Sulawesi, officials said Friday.

""We have discussed the possibility of lifting the black boxes with the U.S. However, we have to check first whether there is any equipment available to do the job,"" Minister of Transportation Hatta Radjasa told reporters Friday.

Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Slamet Soebijanto also said he would seek help from other countries as Indonesia did not have the equipment to accomplish the task.

""I'll try to seek assistance from navies from other countries that have the technology to lift the black boxes,"" Soebijanto told reporters after closing a Navy leadership meeting in Jakarta on Friday.

""The only possible thing to do is to use an unmanned mini submarine to do the job,"" he said, adding that the United States and Japan have the technology.

U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia B. Lynn Pascoe said that his country had agreed to help in retrieving the devices, with details of the procedure to be discussed later on.

He said the U.S had sent the findings detected from the U.S. vessel Mary Sears to Singapore for further analysis and verification. He added that the results would be shared with the Indonesian government.

The USNS Mary Sears has captured the signals from the black boxes of the jetliner, which carried 102 people, using its sophisticated Towed Pinger Locator.

The radar indicated that the flight data recorder (FDR) is located 1,800 meters below the sea, while the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is 2,000 meters down.

National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) head Setio Rahardjo confirmed the findings. ""The 37.5 kilohertz frequency of the signal matches with Adam Air's,"" Setio told reporters.

While policy-makers in Jakarta are busy trying to arrange the retrieval of the black box, the head of the search and rescue team in Makassar, Commodore Eddy Suyanto, announced the end of the search Friday.

""The black box and debris of the aircraft have been found. Therefore, our job is terminated starting today. This command post will be closed and all personnel will be returned to their respective institutions,"" Eddy told reporters at the Hasanuddin Airbase in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

The move, however, drew immediate protests from relatives of the victims, who asked the government to retrieve the black box, the debris and the remains of the passengers, which they believed were near the debris.

Comments (0) | Post comment

A | A | A |