Indonesian officials say a diver has died while recovering body parts from the wreckage of Lion Air Flight JT-610 that crashed into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off Monday from Jakarta.
Syachrul Anto, 48, an Indonesian national, died Friday. Officials say he may have died from decompression issues.
Anto had recently helped in the recovery efforts in Palu, which experienced an earthquake and tsunami in September. He also took part in the evacuation process of an Air Asia plane crash nearly four years ago.
“A very noble hero,” is how Yosep Safrudin described his friend Anto in a Facebook post.
One black box found
Indonesian navy divers have recovered one of the so-called “black boxes” from the wreckage, which contain crucial information on the plane’s brief flight. Divers recovered the flight data recorder Thursday. They are still searching for the cockpit voice recorder.
The crash is the first involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new fuel-efficient version of the legendary passenger jet.
Indonesia’s transport ministry has ordered an inspection of all new 737 MAX 8 jets.
Lion Air has ordered 50 of the new planes at a cost of $6.2 billion.
Earlier problem
Lion Air Chief Edward Sirait told reporters that the ill-fated plane, which had only been in service for two months, suffered a technical problem during a flight from the resort island of Bali to Jakarta the night before, but it was resolved according to procedure.
The ministry has suspended Lion Air’s technical director and technicians who cleared the plane to fly.
All 189 passengers and crew were killed in the crash.
Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation sector has acquired a reputation of poor safety oversight. The country’s airlines have previously been banned from operating in the United States and the European Union.
