Search teams yesterday tried to locate the black box of an Indonesian jetliner that crashed into the ocean with 102 people on board, but sea depths of more than 1,5km were hampering the hunt.
Experts said authorities had to find the box -- also known as a flight data recorder -- or significant pieces of wreckage such as the engines, cockpit and wings to determine what caused the Boeing 737 to crash.
"It's very much like putting a puzzle together in terms of trying to look at each of the pieces," said Jim Hall, a former chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board.
"Everything is carefully examined and there is a process in which things are ruled out before you rule anything in," he said.
The plane disappeared off radar on New Year's Day after its pilot reported strong winds en route to the northeastern island of Sulawesi.
A massive land and sea search found no trace until earlier this week, when several small pieces of the plane were found by fishermen or beachcombers in western Sulawesi. No bodies or survivors have been recovered.
A fisherman who pulled the first piece of the plane -- a 1m length section of the tail -- from the sea received a cash reward of a US$5,500 from the government yesterday.
Bakri Hapipah said he stored the piece under his stilted house for a day until another villager told him to report it to authorities.
"I never thought it would be part of the missing plane," he told reporters.
Locating the black box is proving a massive challenge.
Authorities do not know whether large parts of the plane remain intact on the ocean floor or if the jetliner exploded into thousands of small pieces, either in mid-air or on contact with the sea.
Eddy Suyanto, the head of the search team, said a US navy ship capable of mapping the ocean floor had been unable to determine whether several large metal objects detected on the sea bed were parts of the plane, and was planning to dock today to pick up more equipment.
"We are determined to find ... the black box," he told reporters yesterday.
"However, the depth of the Makassar Strait reaches 1,700m in places. We need very sophisticated technology to locate it," he said.
The black box transmits a signal, but it is low-powered and intended only help to locate the device within a relatively small area.
The crash follows a string of transport disasters, floods and landslides in Indonesia, including a ferry sinking that killed or left missing more than 400 people.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is giving US President Donald Trump three months before his fellow Americans force him to rethink his stringent global tariff strategy, accusing the US leader of “living in an old world.” In an interview two months ahead of his 100th birthday, the plain-speaking Mahathir said: “Trump will find that his tariffs are hurting America, and the people in America will end up against him.” The US president’s stop-start tariff rollout would impact Asian nations hard, including Malaysia, which faces a 24 percent levy in July unless the two countries can strike a deal. “It’s going to cause
RSS