Adam Air's Black Box Battery Nearing End

Indonesia debated the costs and complications of retrieving the black box of a jetliner that plunged into the sea with 102 people, as experts warned its 30-day battery life is close to expiring.

The Adam Air Boeing 737 crashed on New Year's Day after running into 130 kph (80 mph) winds off Sulawesi island's western coast, but with no mayday issued or technical problems reported, the cause remains a mystery.

A U.S. Navy ship detected signals from the plane's flight data recorders, also known as black boxes, in the Makassar Strait, but at a depth of 1,700 meters (one mile), the government said last week the cost of recovering them could be too high.

Indonesia also lacks the necessary sea-salvaging technology.

"We're still trying to find out if the technology is available to bring up the black box," Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa told reporters in Makassar on Monday.

Indonesia has asked for help from the United States and various options were being discussed, U.S. Embassy spokesman Max Kwak said.

But with the black boxes' 30-day battery life about to expire, Jim Hall, a former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, stressed that "time is of the essence."

"If you lose the signal, you don't have anything to hone in on. It could take days, or you may not be able to recover it at all," he said.

Apart from determining the cause of the accident, recovering the black box could also help find out if there are structural problems in the world's most popular passenger plane, experts say.

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