JAKARTA, Indonesia: Divers on Thursday recovered a flight recorder from the crashed Lion Air jet on the seafloor, a crucial development in the investigation into what caused the 2-month-old plane to plunge into Indonesian seas earlier this week, killing all 189 people on board.
One TV station showed footage of two divers after they surfaced, swimming to an inflatable vessel and placing the bright orange device into a large container that was transferred to a search-and-rescue ship.
“I was desperate because the current below was strong but I am confident of the tools given to me,” said navy 1st Sgt. Hendra, who uses a single name, in a television interview. After narrowing the possible location, “I started digging and cleaning the debris until I finally found an orange object,” he said, standing on the deck of a ship next to his diving mate.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crashed early Monday just minutes after takeoff from the Indonesian capital Jakarta. It was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia in more than two decades and renewed concerns about safety in its fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and US blacklists.
Navy Col. Monang Sitompul told local TV that was is believed to be the aircraft’s fuselage was also seen on the seafloor.
The device will be examined by the National Transportation Safety Committee, said search and rescue agency head Muhammad Syaugi. It’s still to be determined if it’s the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, he said.
Syaugi said the location of the find was about 500 meters (yards) northwest of the coordinates where the plane lost contact.
Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the flight data recorder.
Several passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air.
Lion Air has ordered 50 of the MAX 8 planes and one of its subsidiary airlines was last year the first to operate the new generation jet.
Investigators say a preliminary report into the accident could be released within a month but complete findings will take several months more.
The Lion Air crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board.
Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The US lifted a decadelong ban in 2016.
Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia’s youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people.
Divers recover jet’s flight recorder on Indonesia seafloor
Divers recover jet’s flight recorder on Indonesia seafloor
- The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crashed early Monday just minutes after takeoff from the Indonesian capital Jakarta
- Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday
Russia has thrust world into new ‘age of uncertainty’: UK spy chief
- In her maiden speech, Blaise Metreweli highlighted the “threat” posed by an “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist” Russia
- “We are now operating in a space between peace and war,” added the new head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service
LONDON: Russia has propelled the world into an “age of uncertainty” and the UK is now operating in “a space between peace and war,” Britain’s new MI6 spy chief said Monday.
“Let’s be in no doubt. Our world is more dangerous and contested now than it has been for decades,” Blaise Metreweli, the first woman to lead the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), warned.
“Conflict is evolving and trust eroding, just as new technologies spur both competition and dependence,” she said.
In her maiden speech, the new head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service highlighted the “threat” posed by an “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist” Russia.
In its war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin “is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population,” she said.
“Russia is testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war,” she added.
Metreweli highlighted tactics by Moscow to “bully, fearmonger and manipulate” through cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, drones buzzing around European airports, aggressive activity on the seas and state-sponsored arson.
“Across the globe, we are now confronting not one single danger, but an interlocking web of security challenges — military, technological, social, ethical even — each shaping the other in complex ways,” she said.
“We are now operating in a space between peace and war.”
And Metreweli warned that “our world is being actively remade, with profound implications for national and international security.
“Institutions which were designed in the ashes of the Second World War are being challenged.”
Metreweli was appointed in June as the 18th head of the service. The MI6 chief is the only publicly named member of the organization and reports directly to the foreign minister.
She warned of the increasingly complex nature of global threats, adding the “front line is everywhere” as a result of cyber disruption, hybrid warfare, “terrorism and information manipulation.”
- ‘National resilience’ -
The new head of Britain’s armed forces, Richard Knighton, meanwhile was Monday to call for “national resilience” in another speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think tank specializing in defense.
“The situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career and the response requires more than simply strengthening our armed forces,” the chief of defense staff will say, according to a Ministry of Defense (MoD) statement.
“A new era for defense doesn’t just mean our military and government stepping up — as we are — it means our whole nation stepping up.”
Knighton will announce £50 million ($67 million) in funding for new “Defense Technical Excellence Colleges” to help defense employers train up staff.
The speeches come as Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due in Berlin later Monday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on how to end Moscow’s nearly four-year invasion.
Britain has repeatedly warned of the threat from Russia, recently raising the alarm after the government said a Russian military ship was sighted near British waters.
The MoD has just launched a new organization — the Military Intelligence Services — to unify intelligence gathering and sharing efforts undertaken by the army, navy and air force.
“The announcement comes amid escalating threats to the UK, as adversaries intensify cyber-attacks, disrupt satellites, threaten global shipping lanes, and spread disinformation,” the MoD said on Friday.
