REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PANGKALAN BUN -- Research ship Baruna Jaya I has been ordered to focus on finding the black box of AirAsia flight QZ8501 that crashed in Teluk Kumai waters in Central Kalimantan recently.
Engineer from the Technology Assessment and Application Agency (BPPT) Yudo Haryadi said to Antara on Sunday the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) had ordered the Baruna Jaya I to focus on finding the black box.
The operation of the research ship, he said, is now under the coordination of the National Committee of Transportation Safety (KNKT).
"There are three ships carrying a pinger locator at the search location right now and they are all coordinated by KNKT," he added.
He said so far BPPT's Baruna Jaya I's pinger locator had only caught signal indications or pings of the black box of the ill-fated plane that had been searched in several locations and no confirmation could not as yet be made until the 14th day of searching so far.
Yudo said Baruna Jaya I is now still striving to find or catch signals of the black box at a radius not far from the location where the tail of the aircraft was found.
He said the ship's pinger locator could catch signal at a radius of as wide as six kilometers from the black box.
The Baruna Jaya I is still consistently scouring the second priority area in an effort to find the black box in line with the Basarnas' directives.
According to Basarnas' operational director Commodore SB Supriyadi the black box consisting of flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder might possibly have been separated from the tail.
"It is not found in the tail. So it has possibly been separated from it," he said.
He said however its whereabouts could not as yet be confirmed so far.
"We cannot as yet confirm its location but some ships carrying a pinger locater have caught signals about one kilometer southeast of the location of where the tail was found," he said.
In view of that "efforts are now being made to find its right location for divers to be able to be deployed to check it."
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