Divers retrieve 2nd black box from AirAsia crash

Associated Press

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia

Divers retrieved the crashed AirAsia plane’s second black box from the bottom of the Java Sea today, giving investigators essential tools to piece together what brought Flight 8501 down.

The cockpit voice recorder was freed from beneath the heavy ruins of a wing early this morning from a depth of about 98 feet, a day after the aircraft’s flight data recorder was recovered, said Tonny Budiono, sea-navigation director at the Transportation Ministry.

“Thank God,” he said. “This is good news for investigators to reveal the cause of the plane crash.”

The device will be flown to the capital, Jakarta, to be downloaded and analyzed with the other box. Since it records in a two-hour loop, all discussions between the captain and co-pilot should be available.

The plane crashed 42 minutes into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore on Dec. 28. All 162 people on board were killed, but only 48 bodies have been recovered so far.

The find is the latest boost in the slow-moving hunt to scour the shallow, murky stretch of ocean.

Over the weekend, the tail of the Airbus A320 was recovered. The black boxes are housed inside the tail, but were missing when the wreckage was pulled to the surface.

The information pulled from the black boxes — which are actually orange — will likely be vital.