Search continues for Indonesia plane crash victims
At least five other victims have been identified, as forensic examiners sort through mangled human remains retrieved from the wreckage-littered seabed in the hope of matching DNA with relatives. The search was earlier suspended over bad weather,
Aldha Refa (C), the wife of Okky Bisma, a flight attendant and one of the 62 people aboard Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 which crashed shortly after takeoff on January 9, is comforted as she grieves at his funeral in Jakarta on January 14, 2021.
Indonesian divers are prepared to resume a search for the remains of the victims and the cockpit voice recorder from a Sriwijaya Air plane that plunged into the Java Sea soon after takeoff last week.
The search at the crash site of the downed Boeing 737-500, that was traveling from Jakarta to Pontianak, was temporarily suspended on Wednesday after bad weather whipped up high waves.
"We hope that today’s weather will be calm," said search and rescue director Rasman MS. "With good weather that can support our operations, they (the divers) hope to achieve optimum results in finding the victims and plane debris.”
A team of divers recovered one of the plane’s so-called black boxes, the flight data recorder (FDR), from the seabed earlier this week with efforts underway on Thursday to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
Reason yet to be known
With the cause of the fatal crash of the 27-year-old plane unclear, investigators will rely heavily on the black boxes to determine what caused the jet to lose control minutes after take-off.
Indonesia’s national transportation safety committee expects to download the FDR data in the coming days, said the committee’s chief, Soerjanto Tjahjono.
As the global pandemic hammered demand for air travel, the jet, previously flown by US-based Continental Airlines and United Airlines, had been parked in a hangar for about nine months before it was put back into service in December after being declared airworthy, according to the transport ministry.
Since then, it had flown more than 130 times before the accident, flight tracking data showed.
On Wednesday, divers had continued to retrieve plane debris, as well as body parts and the personal effects of the 62 Indonesians on board.
The national police's disaster victim identification (DVI) team has identified six victims from the flight, including a crew member and two passengers, according to CNN Indonesia.
READ MORE: Five things to know about aviation disasters
Funerals underway
Grieving friends and relatives were expected at a Jakarta cemetery Thursday for the funeral of a flight attendant on the crashed Indonesian passenger jet.
Okky Bisma, 29, was the first confirmed victim of Saturday's disaster after fingerprints from his retrieved hand were matched to those on a government identity database.
The crash probe was likely to take months, but a preliminary report was expected in 30 days.
The crash probe was likely to take months, but a preliminary report was expected in 30 days.
The Sriwijaya crash is the second major airline disaster in Indonesia after 189 people were killed onboard a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max that plunged into the Java Sea minutes after take-off in 2018.
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