Adam Air’s ‘Black Boxes’ Recovered

Accident investigators probing the fatal New Year’s Day loss of Adam Air Flight 574 in Indonesia hope to recover data from the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the Boeing 737 that crashed en route from Jakarta to Manado, on the northern island of Sulawesi, killing all 102 people onboard. The recorders were retrieved from 200-meter deep water using an unmanned submersible equipped with a camera and robotic arm. Phoenix International, a U.S. salvage company, finally carried out the recovery after months of wrangling over who would foot the bill. The chairman of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Commission expressed optimism that data can be retrieved from the recorders. He said they are being sent to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s laboratory in Washington, DC, which will attempt to extract the last crucial cockpit conversations and the final instrument readings. Indonesia hopes to improve its aviation safety record in the wake of three fatal passenger aircraft accidents this year. The European Union banned all of Indonesia’s air carriers pending implementation of safety initiatives.