Indonesia suspends search for crashed jet’s cockpit recorder

Indonesia on Wednesday temporarily suspended a search by divers for the cockpit voice recorder of a Sriwijaya Air that crashed with 62 people on board shortly after take-off on Saturday.

The search in the Java Sea had to be halted due to bad weather that whipped up waves of up to 2.5 metres (8.2 feet) in height, officials said.

Earlier on Wednesday, divers retrieved more debris and a damaged Identity card of one of the victims, Navy official Abdul Rasyid told reporters on board the Indonesian navy ship Rigel.

Divers had retrieved the plane’s flight data recorder (FDR) from the seabed on Tuesday and officials said they had also found the beacon that was attached to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

A remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) will be deployed to scour the seabed on Wednesday, Rasyid said.

He added that the search had been made more complicated because no pings were now being emitted after the beacon detached from the CVR.

“We have the ROV that will confirm the location again and tomorrow we will dive and comb that location again,” he said.

Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto had on Tuesday said he had “high confidence” of finding the recorder soon.