FDR and CVR from Garuda Indonesia crash sent to Australia

Australia's ABC News Online is reporting that both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder from the Garuda Indonesia B737 that crashed at Yogyakarta have been recovered. The devices have been sent to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) head offices in Canberra.

The boxes, a cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, will help investigators piece together the events leading up to the crash that killed more than 20 people.

Once the recorders are inspected, investigators will be able to determine if any flight data can be retrieved.

The pilots of the Garuda flight have blamed a sudden strong wind gust for the crash at Yogyakarta airport.

But Indonesia's national police spokesman has cited human error as the best initial assessment.

Commenting on accounts by eyewitnesses and survivors regarding the cause of the accident, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said that "speculation doesn't help..."

ATSB spokesman Joe Hattley says it could take months for a full analysis of the flight recorders.

"The guys will be working over the weekend to download these particular recorders," he said.

"Then we hope to get some preliminary information back to the investigation team probably early on next week.

"The analysis of that information will then take a lot longer and you're talking months."

An earlier article, also on ABC News Online, said that the two pilots had been interviewed by Indonesian authorities about the accident, and that they claimed that wind caused the plane to hit the runway hard before it exploded.