The crash of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 still a vexing mystery falls into a broad category of airliners that suddenly plunge out of the sky. Such violent descents make up a small percentage of overall accidents, but account for an outsize portion of deaths because they almost inevitably kill everyone aboard. While the airline accident rate has steadily improved, there have been multiple crashes of that type in recent decades. The Sriwijaya flight, with a 26-year-old Boeing Co. 737-500 jet, took off from Jakarta with 62 people on Jan. 9 and at first flew what appeared to be a routine trajectory, according to a flight track produced by Flightradar24. After reaching about 10,000 feet (3,050 meters), it leveled off, staying between 10,000 and 11,000 feet for about 45 seconds, according to the data.
The device is expected to help investigators determine what caused the Boeing 737-500 plane to nosedive into the ocean in heavy rain shortly after taking off from Jakarta on Saturday.