An Indonesian search team has recovered part of the black box of the Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft that crashed in the country's mountainous terrain last week with no survivors.
Vice-Marshal Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, said at a press conference on Wednesday that searchers retrieved the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which records communication between pilots and air traffic controllers, about 100 meters from the tail of the crashed plane.
Data from the retrieved CVR, which was badly burned and had lost its distinctive orange color, could help to explain the causes of the crash.
However, the flight data recorder (FDR) could not be located. Daryatmo told reporters that the rescue team from military and police would continue search for the crucial device.
He said the voice recorder was brought to capital Jakarta, where the data from the device would be analyzed with the help of Russian experts, who are already part of the Indonesia-Russia joint investigation team.
The Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 with 45 passengers on board went missing at around 2:40 p.m. last Wednesday after it slammed into a steep mountainside south of Jakarta.
The next day, the crew of a military helicopter spotted the wreckage including the Sukhoi logo on the ground in the Cijeruk area, near the dormant volcano Mount Salak, close to the city of Bogor in West Java.
Rescuers have so far recovered 27 bodies by adventurously climbing on ropes through the steep slope of the jungle volcano. Most of the wreckage of the plane remains there at an altitude of 6,000 feet, and the nearly vertical face of Mount Sakal has made search efforts extremely difficult.
The Sukhoi Superjet was flying from Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport with 37 passengers, six crew and two Sukhoi officials, and when it reached near Mount Salak about 30 minutes into the flight, radio contact with the aircraft was lost.
The accident took place when the plane was trying to descend from an altitude of 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet while heading to Halim Perdanakusuma Airport.
There were eight Russians, one American, one French, two Italians and 33 Indonesians on board the aircraft which was performing a series of demonstration flights in several Central and Southeast Asian countries to introduce the aircraft to prospective buyers.
Sukhoi officials were aiming to convince Indonesian airline firms to buy at least 40 of the aircraft. The Sukhoi Superjet-100 is Russia's first new generation passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union and is designed to replace the obsolete Tu-134 and Yak-42.
The Russians are working in close coordination with their Indonesian counterparts in probing the mishap, as well as in the rescue efforts.
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