Divers located the flight data recorder Thursday, but investigators are saying they have not been able to download any information from it because "there are some broken parts" in the device, Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Commission said.
Haryo Satmiko, the agency's deputy chief, said Saturday that Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are flying special equipment to Indonesia to assist local authorities in extracting that valuable information.
The recorder, commonly known as a black box, contains information on how the plane's systems were performing in the moments before the crash.
Authorities had hoped the discovery of the recorder would help explain why the new Boeing 737 crashed, killing all 189 people on board but it's unclear if they will be able retrieve any clues.
An aviation official with knowledge of the crash investigation had told CNN on Friday that the recorder was so deeply submerged in water that it was hard to get the data off it.
A second device, a cockpit voice recorder that remains missing, could also help investigators piece together the final moments of the brand new aircraft.
Divers in the Java Sea have looked for the device in fast-moving currents and muddy waters for days without luck.
The chief of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, Muhammad Syauqi Syauqi, said his team had not heard pings from the cockpit voice recorder. The voice recorder could be in the seabed about 35 meters (114 feet) from the surface, and it could be obscured by debris or hidden by mud.
Analysts say finding the cockpit voice recorder is imperative to determine if the crash has implications for other airlines collectively operating thousands of Boeing 737 flights around the world each day.
"We need to know whether there is a Lion Air problem, a specific problem to this plane, or whether it is a general wider problem for 737s," said Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of airline rating agency, Airlineratings.com.
Diver still combing through debris
The wheels of the jetliner recovered Friday and a plane engine turbine located on the ocean floor are the largest pieces of debris found by divers.
Most of the plane's wreckage remains deep in the water and it's so shattered that analysts say the recovery of the rest of the fuselage is likely to be done by hand or with nets.
David Soucie, an aviation safety analyst for CNN, said another big challenge for divers will be to identify and separate any body parts from other debris.
"You look at the insulation and the seat backs, the seat cushions can easily be mistaken for body parts and vice versa," Soucie said.
Only one victim has been identified
Flight 610 was supposed to take its passengers on a one-hour journey from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka. Instead it crashed 13 minutes after takeoff. The pilots had requested to turn around but didn't transmit an emergency call.
At least 65 body bags have been gathered since the start of the search-and-rescue operation, though each bag could contain remains of more than one person.
Investigators will have to rely on DNA samples to identify victims because of the condition and size of the remains found. Police have 181 DNA samples from victims' families and are working to match them to 272 human tissues samples.
Lisda Cancer, head of Disaster Victim Identification, told reporters Friday that only one person has been identified so far -- a female confirmed through a fingerprint.
On Wednesday, authorities started bringing relatives to the port to identify victims' personal belongings, which lay piled up next to cushions and other debris that appeared to be from the aircraft.
Epi Syamsul Qomar, whose 24-year-old son was on the flight, broke down in tears when he recognized his son's shoe.
"I saw my son's black sneaker," he told CNN. "I also saw his bank checkbook."
Pilot reported plane issues
The jetliner had experienced technical issues the day before on another route, passengers aboard that flight revealed to CNN.
On Sunday the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft -- a new plane, which had only around 800 flying hours</a> on the clock -- had flown Lion Air's Bali-Jakarta route and had experienced a significant drop in altitude, passenger Robbi Gaharu said.
"I thought maybe it was caused by turbulence. After 10 minutes in the air the plane dropped as if it was losing power. People panicked. It dropped about 400 feet," said Gaharu, adding that he had confirmed the height of the drop on a flight-tracking website. He said the drop felt like falling into "a really, really deep hole."
Lion Air confirmed to CNN that the aircraft that crashed on Monday had been used to fly the JT43 Bali-Jakarta route the day before, and Indonesian authorities confirmed that the pilot on Sunday's flight reported a problem with one of the plane's instruments.
Capt. Daniel Putut Kuncoro Adi, managing director of Lion Group, said that all information had been handed over to Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Commission and he could not answer any questions about the fault because of a nondisclosure agreement signed to accommodate the investigation.
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