Indonesian search team finds wrecked Russian jet’s black box

A search team in Indonesia has found part of the black box of a Russian passenger jet that crashed into a dormant volcano last week, killing all 45 people on board.

The head of Indonesia’s National Commission on Safety said Wednesday that the badly burned box was retrieved from the bottom of a 500-meter ravine, near the tail of the wrecked Russian Sukhoi Superjet, the Associated Press reports.

The cockpit voice recorder was found inside, and it is hoped that the recording of comments made by the plane’s pilots may explain what caused the crash. The box also contained a flight data recorder, but this device remains missing.

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According to the BBC, the data from the voice recorder will be analysed in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, with help from Russian experts. It will be two to three weeks before any details are revealed, and the transcriptions will not be made public.

The Sukhoi Superjet is Russia’s first passenger jet model since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and was intended to help resuscitate Russia’s aerospace industry. It was making a demonstration flight for representatives from Indonesia’s domestic airlines when it crashed into Mount Salak on May 9, The Guardian reports.

Indonesian airline representatives and journalists as well as eight Russian pilots and technicians were said to be on board the plane when it crashed. 

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