Divers retrieve AirAsia 'black box', explosion theory questioned

Tatang Kurniadi (R), head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, points at the flight data recorder of AirAsia QZ8501 as Indonesian Armed Forces Chief Moeldoko (C) looks on, onboard Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh, in the Java Sea, Jan 12, 2015. Indonesian navy divers on Monday retrieved the black box flight data recorder from an AirAsia airliner that crashed two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board, a government official said. [Photo/Agencies]

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia/JAKARTA - Indonesian navy divers retrieved the black box flight data recorder from the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet on Monday, a major step towards unravelling the cause of the crash that killed all 162 people on board.

But there was confusion about what happened in the final moments of Flight QZ8501, which crashed off the Indonesian coast on Dec 28, with one official saying the plane probably exploded before hitting the water and another disputing that theory.

The Airbus A320-200 airliner lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

"At 7:11, we succeeded in lifting the part of the black box known as the flight data recorder," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters at a news conference.

The second so-called black box, containing the cockpit voice recorder, is located about 20 metres away from where the flight data recorder was found, but divers have not yet been able to get to it.

"(The cockpit voice recorder) seems to be under a wing, which is quite heavy," said Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the search and rescue agency. "So we will use air bags to lift it. This will be done tomorrow."

The black boxes contain a wealth of data that will be crucial for investigators piecing together the sequence of events that led to the airliner plunging into the sea.

Supriyadi said the wreckage indicated that the plane likely "experienced an explosion" before hitting the water due to a significant change in air pressure.

He said the left side of the plane seemed to have disintegrated, pointing to a change in pressure that could have caused an explosion.

"NO DATA" TO SUPPORT THEORY

Supporting this possibility, he added, was the fact that fishermen in the area had reported hearing an explosion and saw smoke above the water.

But another official disputed the likelihood of a blast.

"There is no data to support that kind of theory," said Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee.