The Air Asia Flight QZ8501 cockpit voice recorder was retrieved by divers from the bottom of Java Sea in the early morning of Jan. 13, Tuesday, CBS News reported.
Tonny Budiono, an official of Transportation Ministry, explained that the secondary black box was found under the planes' wings from a depth of 100 feet.The essential tool is vital to the ongoing investigations on what really happened that caused the big plane to crash.
The recovered secondary black box will be transported to Jakarta where it will be downloaded and shall be examined and inspected together with the primary voice recorder. The black box contained a two-hour loop. The discussions between the captain and his co-pilot throughout their 42-minute ride will be readily available.
Air Asia Flight 8501 crashed back on Dec. 28, 2014 killing all 162 people on board. Search and rescue teams had been preparing rescue equipment to help lift the plane's debris for divers to retrieve the black box.
The primary block box was reportedly redeemed on Jan. 12, Monday. However, the secondary black box (orange in color) was stuck under the heavy mass of the plane's destroyed wings at a depth of 32 meters under the Java Sea.
According to Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the Operation Coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia, the secondary black box was already found prior to the retrieval of the cockpit voice recorder but it was difficult for the divers to retrieve since large pieces of metal were piled on top of it.
Around 80 Indonesian navy divers dipped into the shallow sea 20 meters away from where the instrument was found, Supriyadi added.
Pieces of windows and cupboards were found near the Java port of Semarang by the Indonesian warship, around 450 miles southeast from where the plane initially lost contact with the Indonesian air traffic control. This shows how far the debris drifted for 17 days since the plane crashed.