Jakarta: The Indonesian and Russian joint search and rescue team is intensifying efforts to search the flight data recorder device, popularly known as black box, of the crashed Sukhoi Superjet 100 plane on Tuesday following efforts to retrieve bodies of the passengers perished in the crash, local media reported.
"We, however, cannot go alone. We have facilitated our Russian counterpart in the efforts to find the black box. They deployed six people in the joint team. They are now descending down to the ravine to reach the tail part of the plane," said Bogor subdistrict military commander Col. Infantry AM Putranto who oversees the activity. "I am not sure whether the device is there or not. But I hope that the weather remains clear, conducive to support the searching activities," he added, quoted by the largest news portal detik.com.
"We already identify the tail part location. It is located in a very steep slope, full of bushes. The tail part is apparently mangled, and we estimated that the black box device had already bounced out from their initial place," chief of Indonesian searching team Lieut. Col. Mar. Oni Junianto said.
He added that the joint search team has been ordered to comb areas around the tail part debris to find the black box. The Indonesian authority initially hinted that the black box device was allegedly located in the tail part of the plane that plunged into a ravine after the impact that completely destroyed the body of the plane when the crash occurred in the slope of Mt. Salak, West Java, on May 9, killing all the 45 people on board.
The Indonesian government has affirmed it will probe the content of the black box to reveal the cause of the crash. The Russian team would only be allowed to assist to help if the Indonesian probing team has technical problem in its investigation.
ANI