The black boxes from the Garuda plane that crashed in Yogyakarta two days ago have arrived at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) head offices in Canberra. The boxes, a cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, will help investigators piece together the events leading up to the crash that killed more than 20 people. Once the recorders are inspected, investigators will be able to determine if any flight data can be retrieved. The pilots of the Garuda flight have blamed a sudden strong wind gust for the crash at Yogyakarta airport. But Indonesia's national police spokesman has cited human error as the best initial assessment.
Five Australians survived the crash and five others are missing, presumed dead.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty says many witnesses have already given accounts of the lead-up to the crash but the black box recorder will give an objective indication of what occurred. "It takes some time to work through all the pieces of detail and all the pieces of evidence until we can be firm on what actually has occurred," he said. "That is a source of frustration.
"Speculation doesn't help because we would have had a version of events that started basically from last Wednesday to a version of events that will finally appear, in terms of Australia, before one of our coroners."
ATSB spokesman Joe Hattley says it could take months for a full analysis of the flight recorders. "The guys will be working over the weekend to download these particular recorders," he said. "Then we hope to get some preliminary information back to the investigation team probably early on next week.
"The analysis of that information will then take a lot longer and you're talking months."