Taking Risks Together on Search Mission

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Members of the Jalamangkara Detachment (Denjaka), an elite counterterrorism unit of the Indonesian Navy, boards a boat on Tuesday (30/10/2018) after a dive to search for flight JT-610’s fuselage.

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"Yesterday, I saw that two baby shoes were found. It shocked me and at the same time, motivated me to continue to assist in the search operation," said 2nd Sgt. Suprapto of the Jalamangkara Detachment (Denjaka), a counterterrorism elite special force of the Indonesian Navy. He is on the joint dive team in the search-and-rescue (SAR) operation looking for victims of Lion Air flight JT-610, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft that crashed into the Java Sea on Monday.

Suprapto and the other divers were not discouraged by their exhaustion from diving amid strong underwater currents with limited visibility, or by the minimal results of their efforts. On the first day of the search at the suspected crash site on Monday (29/10/2018), he found pieces from the fuselage, personal items and body parts.

Suprapto and other Denjaka personnel were on board the Basudewa SAR as the ship arrived in the waters of West Kerawang regency for the first time to search for passengers of Lion Air flight JT-610.

On Tuesday, Suprapto and the dive team were assigned to locate and identify the objects KRI Rigel had detected at a depth of 25 meters. He and three other Denjaka divers, along with four divers from the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) dived at four locations.

The divers carried out their mission in tethered pairs. From each rope, the two divers slowly swam away from each other to a distance of 15 meters. "Like a mosquito coil, the longer [the rope], the farther we can [search]," said Suprapto.

The divers carried out two important tasks: recovering victims and locating the flight recorders, also called “black boxes”. However, with each dive limited to a maximum of 20 minutes, they surfaced empty-handed. "The visibility at a depth of more than 25 meters was only about 1 meter," said 1st Sgt. Puryono on the dive team. Underwater currents of about 10-15 knots also made it more difficult for divers.

Search continues

Members of the Coast Guard SAR team (PLP) at the sea’s surface also continued to comb the waters off Karawang in search of debris and bodies. Unlike the first day, they found nothing on Tuesday. The faces of seven PLP members showed exhaustion. The boat idled in the sea.

On Tuesday, the search area was expanded from a radius of 5 nautical miles (9.26 kilometers) to 10 nm (18.52 kilometers) from the last known point of contact with the plane. Basarnas preparation team director Didi Hamzar said the search area was expanded because the exact location of the crash had not been found. He said that the joint team had searched 13 priority locations. In four locations, the search focused on finding the aircraft fuselage with ships equipped with a multibeam echosounder (MBES). The team also continued their search.

Advanced equipment

Four ships equipped with SAR devices were also deployed for the recovery operation. The KRI Rigel, for example, had a multibeam echosounder (MBES), side-scan sonar (SSS) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to aid them in detecting submerged objects. The KN SAR Basudewa Jakarta used SSS and a Pertamina vessel was equipped with MBES and a pinger – an acoustic locator. Meanwhile, the Baruna Jaya I used advanced equipment.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Dozens of ships are involved in the search for the Lion Air plane on Tuesday (30/10/2018), which crashed off the Karawang, Karawang regency, West Java, on Monday (29/10).

A team from the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) began its search for the fuselage on Tuesday at 6:00 a.m., along with Basarnas and the Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel on the Barina Jaya I, a research vessel belonging to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT). The search focused on a 5-square-kilometer area about 16 kilometers north of Tanjung Pakis Beach, Karawang.

The mission of Baruna Jaya I was to find the two black boxes: the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR). The ship used MBES and SSS to map the seabed. This sonar sensor can detect objects up to a depth of 2,500 meters.

"This device can send an image if objects are found on the seabed," M. Ilyas, the BPPT Marine Survey Technology (Teksurla) head said via text message from aboard Baruna Jaya I. The ship was also equipped with a magnetometer – a type of metal detector. This device is used after the two other equipment locate an object on the seabed.

Separately, Teksurla facilities and infrastructure head Ikhsan Budi Wahyono said that a pinger and ROV were used to confirm the objects that appeared on the seabed map. ROVs are equipped with photographic and video cameras to transmit images directly. The data is then reviewed on a display monitor on the ship.

Baruna Jaya I was also used to locate the Sinar Bangun passenger ferry that capsized in Lake Toba in mid-2018. The BPPT\'s sophisticated ship had just returned to port from the waters of Palu-Donggala, where it conducted a bathymetry survey, and explored the soil liquefaction that followed the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami.

The vessel also helped locate the black box from the AirAsia flight QZ-8501 aircraft at the beginning of 2015, and was involved in the search for Adam Air 574, which crashed in Makassar Strait in January 2007. It was also used to search for the Baruga ferry in the Sunda Strait in 2013 and KM Gurita in Sabang in 1996.

(YUN/E06/E03/E04)