Indonesia is embarked on a race against time after the identification of the first victim of a Boeing crash off the coast of Indonesia.
The divers are continuing their research on Tuesday in order to bring the debris of the plane to the surface.
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Indonesia: what we know about the Boeing 737 crash
Some 3,600 people are mobilized to recover as quickly as possible the remains of the 62 people who were on board, as well as parts of the aircraft and the flight recorders or black boxes that could make it possible to understand the causes of the accident that occurred offshore. from Jakarta on Saturday.
An underwater robot has been put into service as well as sonars to help divers.
In search of black boxes
Sriwijaya Air's Boeing 737-500 crashed some 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) in less than a minute and plunged into the Java Sea.
The authorities have not given any clue at this stage as to what could have caused the accident of this 26-year-old aircraft a few minutes after take-off.
Images released by the Navy show divers swimming among the debris, with dozens of boats in the area and helicopters.
But the black boxes could be hidden under the mud or under pieces of fuselage in these waters some 23 meters deep in the region of the "thousand islands" crossed by strong currents.
Divers "must overcome the mud and the lack of visibility," said Yusuf Latif, spokesperson for Indonesian relief.
Several dozen bags were filled with human remains collected in the sea and were transferred to a police hospital where investigators are working to identify them.
The police confirmed the identification of a first victim, Okky Bisma, a 29-year-old flight attendant, thanks to the fingerprint of one of his hands brought to the surface.
The relatives of the victims are asked to give DNA extracts for identification.
62 Indonesians on board, including 10 children,
62 people, including 10 children, all Indonesians, were on board the flight heading to Pontianak, a town on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.
Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator for the Indonesian Transport Security Agency (NTSC) said the crew had not issued a distress signal before the accident.
“There's no mention of an emergency or anything like that” in the recorded conversations between the crew and the control tower, he said.
Preliminary data suggests that "most likely" the aircraft was still intact when it hit the water.
According to aviation experts, flight data indicates that the aircraft deviated sharply from its intended path before crashing down suddenly.
They point out that the investigation into the causes of the accident could take months.
This is the first fatal accident involving Sriwijaya since the company's inception in 2003.
Tragedies in recent years
But Indonesia's airline industry has seen tragedies regularly in recent years, and several Indonesian airlines were banned in Europe until 2018. In October 2018, 189 people died in the Boeing 737 crash. MAX operated by Lion Air which also crashed in the Java Sea, twelve minutes after taking off from Jakarta.
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VIDEO. Boeing crash in Indonesia: a signal from the aircraft spotted
An accident involving the same model of aircraft in Ethiopia resulted in the immobilization for months of this type of aircraft and a questioning of the manufacturer.
Sriwijaya's plane does not belong to the controversial new generation of the Boeing 737 MAX but is a “classic” Boeing 737.
