Indonesian authorities claim to have located crashed plane's black boxes

The Indonesian military said that a joint search and rescue team has located the black boxes suspected to belong to the Sriwijaya Aeroplane. The Boeing 737-500 jet carrying 62 people dived into the Java Sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta.

Jakarta:Indonesian military chief Hadi Tjahjanto announced that a joint search and rescue team has located the black boxes suspected to belong to the Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into the Java Sea.

The rescuers, he said on Sunday night, were trying to find black boxes after marking their positions, reports Xinhua news agency.

"It is proven that the two signals issued by the black boxes can continue to be monitored. We have marked them," Tjahjanto said, adding that the plane wreckage is located in the depth of 23 metres.

The Boeing 737-500 aircraft, flying from the capital Jakarta to Pontianak city in West Kalimantan province, crashed on Saturday into the Java Sea between the islands of Laki and Lancang, known as the Thousand Islands chain.

It was carrying 50 passengers, including 10 children and 12 crew members.

The airliner disappeared from radar screens four minutes into its journey to Pontianak.

As of Sunday, a total of seven bags of human body parts and three bags of debris have been retrieved.

The last plane crash in Indonesia took place in October 2018 when a Lion Air flight plunged into the sea about 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta.

A total of 189 people died in that crash.

It was one of two crashes that led regulators to pull the Boeing 737 Max from service all across the world.

In December 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed into sea en route from Indonesia's second biggest city Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard.

IANS Report