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The Indonesian authorities announced that they would immediately begin to examine a damaged black box, found in the wreckage of a Lion Air plane that crashed and crashed at the airport. off Jakarta this week, killing 189 people on board.
The second deadliest air disaster that Indonesia has seen since 1997 has raised new concerns about its security record, and the government said that Lion Air would be regulated more closely.
The investigation into the first crash of the Boeing Co 737 MAX, put into commercial service last year, will also be closely scrutinized by the global aviation industry.
"Tonight, we will download the contents of this black box as soon as possible," Haryo Satmiko, deputy head of the Indonesian Committee for Transport Safety (KNKT), said at a press conference on Thursday.
The magnitude of damage to the aircraft showed "the extraordinary impact" of the accident, he said.
Despite the initial information, the authorities were unsure whether "the memory unit that could survive an accident" came from the flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder because some parts were missing, said Satmiko.
The researchers have not yet detected a locational signal from the second of the two black boxes, housed at opposite ends of the plane. Although the bottom of the sea is only about 30 meters deep, strong currents and energy pipelines in the area have hindered research efforts.
The aircraft, which had been in service only since August, remained silent 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Monday, heading for the mining town of Pangkal Pinang.
The pilot had already been allowed to return to the base.
A marine diver aboard a research vessel told Metro TV that his team had found the orange cylinder containing the recorder among debris on the muddy bottom.
Under normal conditions, it should only take two hours to download the data, Satmiko said, although the analysis may take several weeks.
The results of a preliminary investigation will be made public after 30 days, said another KNKT official.
Hopes erase to find a large fuselage section intact, with bodies easily retrievable inside.
"What is important for us is to get more information about the victims, because it is important for us to find their remains to be able to bury them properly," said Ade Inyo, whose brother-in-law was on board.
Only one of the passengers of the flight was identified among the partial remains found until now.
The investigation will be conducted with the help of Boeing, General Electric and the US Federal Aviation Administration, officials said.
It will also focus on four Lion Air employees, including its technical director, whom the Ministry of Transport said Wednesday suspended, on the grounds that the aircraft had not been airworthy.
Lion Air stated that the aircraft crashed into flight condition and that the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 flying hours between them.
However, according to the Transportation Safety Committee, the plane had had technical problems during its previous flight Sunday from the seaside island of Bali, including a problem regarding "abnormal speed".
