Indonesia believes it has located crashed jet's fuselage and black box

Indonesian search-and-rescueworkers believe an underwater "pinging" sound they have detectedis from the black box of apassenger jet that crashed into thesea with 189 people on board, the country's military chief saidon Wednesday.

Ground staff lost touch with flight JT610 of Indonesianbudget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to thetin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

There were no survivors.

Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said that divers had alreadygone down to check the location from where the signal was pickedup by a search-and-rescue team late on Tuesday, but werecontending with strong currents.

"We hope tonight we can drop anchor and release the ROV[remotely operated underwater vehicle] again, and I am sure wewill find a black box, given the strong indication, andnot farfrom therethe main body of the plane," Tjahjanto said.

Search-and-rescue agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said thecurrent was so strong it had shifted a large ship, while effortswere further complicated because of oil and gas pipelines in thevicinity.

Syaugi said he believed the fuselage was located 400 metresnorthwest of where the plane had lost contact at a depth of 32metres. If found, the fuselage would be lifted using a crane,because many bodies were likely to be trapped inside, he added.

The plane's black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder andflight data recorder are known, should help explain why the almost-new jet went down minutes after takeoff.

Once retrieved, it could take up to three weeks to downloadtheir data and up to six months to analyze it, Soerjanto Tjahjono, the head of a national transport safety committee(KNKT), said.

Amid media speculation over the airworthiness of theaircraft, the transport minister suspended Lion Air's technical director and several technicians to facilitate the crashinvestigation.

The suspended technicians "issued the recommendations forthat flight," the ministry said in a news release. It did not sayhow many technicians had been suspended.

1st victim identified

Relatives are desperate to find traces of their loved ones,but so far only body parts and debris have been found.

Human remains in 53 body bags had been recovered and sent toa hospital in Jakarta, officials said.

Police officer Hudi Suryanto said forensic doctors hadidentified only one victim, Jannatun Cintya Dewi, 24, based on her fingerprints. She worked at the energy ministry.

According to KNKT, the plane had technical problems on itsprevious flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an issue over "unreliableairspeed."

Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircrafthad been in operation since August, adding that it had been airworthy and the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 hours of flyingtime between them.

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait has acknowledgedreports of technical problems with the aircraft, but said maintenance had been carried out "according to procedure" beforeit was cleared to fly again.

Investigators are looking into why the pilot had asked toreturn to base shortly after takeoff, a request that ground control officials had granted, although the flight crashed soonafter.

They will also question pilots who flew the same aircraftfrom Bali to Jakarta on Sunday, and its passengers.