Divers reported seeing the fuselage and engines of Lion Air flight JT610 on the seafloor and a ping locator had detected a signal that might be from the cockpit voice recorder, Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency officials said yesterday.
“Two engines and more landing gear have been found,” agency head Muhammad Syaugi said.
“I haven’t seen it myself, but I got information from some divers that they have seen the fuselage,” Syaugi said.
Photo: Reuters
The brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet on Monday plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people onboard.
The plane nosed downward so abruptly that it might have reached speeds of 965kph or more before slamming into the sea, according to three experts who made calculations based on preliminary flight-tracking data.
It dived with little or no turns and its nose was pointed about 45 degrees below the horizon shortly before impact, an unusually steep dive for an airliner, according to the analysis of data provided by flight-tracking company FlightRadar24.
Syaugi said that a “low ping signal” was detected that could be the black box voice recorder.
“We have made major breakthroughs, as we have recovered two turbines, one wheel,” Syaugi said. “There are reports of team members seeing the body of the plane.”
However, diver Syachrul Anto, 48, who was volunteering in the search operations, died on Friday.
“He was a volunteer with the Search and Rescue Agency,” Isswarto, commander of the Indonesian Navy’s search and rescue division, told reporters.
It is believed he died from decompression, Isswarto said.
Anto had previously served in Palu after it was struck by an earthquake and tsunami in September and also took part in the evacuation process of an Air Asia plane crash nearly four years ago.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
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