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Indonesian divers yesterday retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from beneath the wreckage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 that crashed into the Java Sea as the airline's boss vowed to overcome the "toughest times" that he has ever known.
It came a day after the plane's other black box, the flight data recorder, was recovered. The devices should give investigators vital information about what caused the accident.
Flight QZ8501 went down on December 28 in stormy weather as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board.
Just 48 bodies have so far been recovered, with many believed to be in the main section of the fuselage, which has not been found.
Indonesia's meteorological agency has said bad weather likely caused the Airbus A320-200 to crash but a definitive answer is truly impossible without looking at the data recorders.
Rescuers have faced a lengthy, difficult search often hampered by bad weather, but a breakthrough came at the weekend when they finally detected "ping" signals from the black boxes.
Divers yesterday lifted the second black box to the surface and took it to the navy warship Banda Aceh, said Santoso Sayogo, an investigator from the National Transport Safety Committee. "The CVR (cockpit voice recorder) has been lifted from the water and is in the ship," he said.
The device had been about 32 metres under water, beneath a wing. It was not far from the first black box but took longer to retrieve as it was trapped under heavy wreckage.
The flight data recorder monitors information such as airspeed, while the cockpit voice recorder stores radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit.
The accident is the first major setback for Malaysia-based AirAsia, which has enjoyed a 13-year run of success.
In a message to customers, boss Tony Fernandes said that "the past few weeks have been the most difficult weeks of my life since starting AirAsia". But he pledged to get through the crisis: "Even in our toughest times, we will continue to be the world's best and be better for you."
In another positive development for the investigation, divers yesterday spotted one of the aircraft's engines, which has a control unit that records data about performance, said Nurcahyo Utomo, from the transport committee. "If something is wrong with the engine, or weird, it will be recorded," he said.
Authorities now say the focus is on finding the main body of the aircraft, although Utomo said he believed that it had probably broken into pieces.


Divers recover AirAsia cockpit voice recorder beneath wreckage

Samples of the flight data recorder (FDR) (top) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) (bottom) during a press conference by Indonesian officials about the status of recovery operations on Air-Asia flight QZ8501 in Pangkalan Bun. Photo: AFP

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