As far as I can read and understand it ...
When is the actual preliminary report due out? I thought it was late Jan?
Yes it is already out at the end of the 1 month period set out by ICAO ... and sent to ICAO and parties involved ... but certainly not made public ... in spite of the expectation of some pprune posters.
KNKT/NTSC have literally stated (look at previous posts - including a translation of the KNKT interview video) that they 'have the key' to the accident.
KNKT suggested that they would have a press conference later divulging more information. Later that changed to - it would be adressed during an already scheduled annual KNKT report presentation - but it was not (as far as I could see - even digging deep in local Indonesian press reporting).
Most public information is from a parliamentary commission presentation of which fragments can be found on-line.
Due to the fact they were keen(maybe not he best word) to cancel the majority of the salvage operations, surely the investigation team have a clear picture with the aid of FDR/CVR of what happened?
The salvage as such already faltered before they had had time to read the flight recorders. So I find that cause-effect highly unlikely.
If so what's with the delay?
I asked that recently. Nobody knows apparently. And most surprising, nobody appears to be upset about that.
Interesting is that originally KNKT stated they expected the final report in 1 year. Recently statements have reduced that to 8 months.
For an innocent bystander it is quite confusing. The state quite fast that they have 'all' the answers. But will publish quite late ... not having a Prelim ... we have to wait at least 8 months for a Final ... which by definition will have a Public version. It would be nice to get some public KNKT explanation of course.