The plane crash in Indonesia is puzzling. The search continues today, with the so-called black box becoming crucial in explaining what really happened to Lion Air flight JT610.

Six bodies have been pulled from the sea where an Indonesian airliner crashed yesterday. Indonesian authorities fear that all 189 people on board are dead.

On Tuesday, the search resumed, using sonar to try to find the plane's wreckage. Divers and 15 surface search vessels are also continuing to participate in the effort.

The sea was calm on the morning of the accident. Fisherman Gauk, who like many Indonesians only uses one name, was not far from the crash site when the plane hit the water.

"You could feel the explosion through the shock wave in the water," Gauk told Reuters.

New plan
With only 800 hours in the air, the two-month-old Boeing 737 Max 8 was considered very new.

The data collected so far from the 13 minutes since takeoff in Jakarta is strange and contradictory. The plane lost 152 meters of altitude about two minutes after takeoff. The plane then continued to climb to 1,500 meters, before losing altitude again before the signal disappeared over the sea, according to the Swedish flight tracking service Flightradar 24.

The site uses the aircraft's so-called ADS-B system, which means that equipment on board the plane sends information about speed, position and altitude, which can be used by other aircraft and air traffic control.

The latest information shows that the plane was traveling downward at a speed of 560 kilometers per hour. Such a forward speed would be normal during a normal flight, but not in a descending direction. Even in airplane crashes, the downward speed is not usually that high.

“This is really going badly. The numbers are a bit unbelievable,” John Cox, head of the American company Safety Operating Systems, which has conducted several investigations, told Bloomberg.

Black box crucial
The ADS-B data should be taken with a pinch of salt. The crucial thing will be to find the aircraft's black box, which on a new plane contains significantly more information that can help investigate what really happened to the aircraft. It also records the sound from the cockpit.

"I don't know what could cause a plane this new to crash. There are so many different factors that could contribute to an accident like this," aviation expert Jon Ostrower at The Air Current told the BBC.

The Max series is otherwise a success story for Boeing. The current model, number 8, has been ordered by Norwegian, among others.

Source: TT