Hunt for doomed Lion Air jet's second black box delayed by bad weather

The Indonesian airline has employed a state-of-the-art ship to aid the search

The search for of the second black box of the crashed Lion Air jet has been delayed by bad weather.

Flight JT-610 crashed into the Java Sea 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on 29 October, killing all 189 people onboard.

The airline said in a statement that it has put aside 38 billion Indonesian rupiah (£2.07m) in the search for the wreckage of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, at the request of victims’ families.

Lion Air has employed the Dutch MPV Everest ship to help with the search for the cockpit voice recorder, as well as the remains of victims in the worst aviation tragedy so far this year.

The vessel was due to arrive in Karawang, near Jakarta, on 17 December. But because of bad weather, is has been delayed in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, because ships of its size are not permitted to leave the port at night. It is now anticipated to arrive on Wednesday 19 December, when the search will resume.

“The search process will be focused based on the last mapping of the area coordinating the fall of flight JT-610 with an operational time of 10 consecutive days, in December 2018,” Lion Air said in a statement.

One of the black boxes was recovered by the Indonesian Navy in November. The flight recorder was found on the muddy sea floor thanks to the “pings” it was emitting.

At the end of November, Indonesia’s transport safety committee said in a preliminary report into the crash that the aircraft was not “airworthy”.

The jet had experienced a string of problems with its airspeed indicator on four different flights, the device revealed.

Relatives of those killed have questioned why the aircraft was cleared for take-off after problems were reported on its previous flight from Bali, during which it experienced a rapid descent that scared passengers.

Following the crash, Indonesian authorities said they would inspect all Boeing 737 Max planes belonging to the country’s commercial airlines.

Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, said that safety was a “core value” and that the safety of “our airplanes, our customers’ passengers and their crews is always our top priority”.