Makassar, S Sulawesi, Jan. 22 -- Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) will hand over the black box of an ATR 42-500 that crashed in South Sulawesi to national investigators, a key step toward determining the cause of the accident.

Basarnas Chief Air Marshal Mohammad Syafii said the recorder from the Indonesia Air Transport aircraft, registered PK-THT, would be submitted to the National Transportation Safety Committee, the authority responsible for accident investigations.

"The black box will be handed to the committee. The data is crucial to reconstruct the sequence of events and identify the cause of the crash," Syafii said in Makassar on Thursday.

On the fifth day of operations on Wednesday, search teams recovered...