Divers Locate Air Asia Black Box

Divers, after searching for nearly two weeks for the wreckage and victims of the AirAsia flight that disappeared Dec. 28, finally found the black boxes in the Java Sea.

According to Tonny Budiono, Sea Transport directorate, said, Navy divers in a Jadayat state boat have finally found the AirAsia QZ8501 black box.

The Indonesian search crews learned of the black boxes’ pings and found them 100 feet under the water surface, not very fair from the plane’s tail section. According to Budiono, it’s thought the boxes are underneath some wreckage and are about 60 feet from each other.

During earlier searches, three ships that were equipped with special detectors had noted pings coming from the same area. Two pings were found – one believed to be flight data recorder and the other the cockpit voice recorder.

 
Balloons will be used Monday to lift wreckage off the black boxes, which will then be retrieved. On Saturday, the plane’s tail was raised out of the sea using the same method.

With the retrieval of the black boxes, Investigators hope to learn what brought the plane down. They’ll use the plane’s black boxes to reconstruct its final moments before the crash and keep future crashes from occurring.

The black boxes are actually bright orange in color, are waterproof, and can send signals out for 30 days, which ensures they can be found and salvaged.

According to the National Search and Rescue Agency, 48 bodies have, so far, been recovered. Thus far, only 30 bodies have been positively identified. Some of the 48 bodies were still belted in their seats.

The AirAsia flight was traveling to Singapore from Surabaya when it went missing over the Java Sea.
 

UPDATE: The first black box, also known as the flight data recorder was recovered on Monday. The AP is also reporting that AirAsia’s second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was recovered from the Java Sea on Tuesday.