The ATSB has been successful in downloading key data from the flight data recorder (FDR) of the Garuda 737 accident aircraft but the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) has not yet been able to be downloaded.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is assisting the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) with Indonesias investigation into the factors which led to the accident in accordance with Annex 13 to the international Chicago Convention under which the Indonesian NTSC is in charge of the safety investigation and the ATSB is Australia's 'accredited representative'.
In addition to the ATSB's three on-site investigators, as part of this assistance, four specialist ATSB investigators in Canberra have been working since Friday afternoon, together with other staff, to download data from both the CVR and the FDR recovered from the accident aircraft.
The ATSB has been authorised by the NTSC to report that, despite the damage to the two recorder 'black boxes', useful data has been recovered from the FDR. The flight data recording system is designed to record over 200 engineering parameters. The recovered data covers the previous 53 flight hours of aircraft operation, and includes substantial data from the accident flight.
The ATSB has this afternoon provided to the NTSC some initial FDR data including the aircraft's speed, vertical acceleration, flap settings and the wind experienced in the accident sequence.
ATSB investigators have been working with the US-based CVR manufacturer, Honeywell, to download data from the CVR but an ATSB investigator now needs to take the CVR module to Honeywell in Seattle to attempt recovery because all normal specialist recovery techniques have proved unsuccessful.
At the NTSC's request, the ATSB is prepared to continue to analyse the recovered FDR data over the coming weeks and months as the investigation progresses and to prepare a full accident animation.
It is for the NTSC to authorise the release of any information derived from the recordings as it becomes available and is verified by the investigation team.