Bureaucratic wrangling and funding problems have hampered the search for the cockpit voice recorder of a crashed Lion Air jet, prompting investigators to turn to the airline to foot the bill in a rare test of global norms on the probe’s independence. Weeks of delays in the search for the second black box may complicate the task of explaining how 189 people died when the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX crashed into the Java Sea on October 29. Indonesian investigators said budgetary constraints and the need for approvals had limited efforts to raise the main wreckage and find the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), thought to hold vital clues to Indonesia’s second-worst air disaster. “We don’t have further funds to rent the ship,” a source at Indonesia’s transport safety committee said, in reference to specialised equipment needed for the search. “There is no emergency fund for us, because there is no legal basis,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “We have already asked the co-ordinating ...
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