Sriwijaya Air Crash: Indonesia’s Black Box Locator Damaged

A device that Indonesia is using to locate the black boxes of the crashed Sriwijaya Air plane is suffering from “technical problems or equipment damage”, say officials.

Authorities are waiting for a new “ping locator” to arrive from Singapore.

Sriwijaya Air’s flight SJ182 left Jakarta with 62 people on board, but vanished from the radar on its way to Borneo island on Saturday.

Search teams have so far found aircraft parts and human remains.

Divers have pinpointed the location of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, or black boxes as they are often called. These recorders store data about planes and can provide vital information in air accident investigations.

“The ping locator equipment that is being operated by the KNKT is experiencing technical problems or equipment damage,” said the KNKT in a statement to BBC Indonesia on Tuesday. “So with these considerations… equipment assistance is urgently needed.”

The Deputy Chairman of the KNKT, Haryo Satmiko, added that the committee had other equipment and qualified and trained personnel needed to carry out the search.

It is unclear how this latest development affects the search, but local television on Tuesday showed footage of divers still looking for debris and the black boxes.