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Indonesia Expands Search For Bodies From AirAsia Crash

Indonesia Expands Search For Bodies From AirAsia Crash

Pangkalan Bun (Indonesia) (AFP) – Recovery teams expanded their search in the Java Sea on Monday as they raced to find bodies and wreckage from AirAsia Flight 8501, which they fear have drifted in rough weather that has hampered operations over the past week.

As the massive relief operation entered its ninth day, officials were hopeful for a break in poor conditions to send divers down to the area where large parts of the crashed Airbus A320-200 have been found.

Only 34 bodies have so far been recovered from the disaster scene. A total of 162 people were onboard when the plane crashed into the sea during on a storm on December 28, en route from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

“Hopefully the weather is good today so that the ROVs (remotely-operated underwater vehicles) and other instruments can be used and our divers can go to the seabed again,” search and rescue official S.B. Supriyadi told AFP.

He said he was hopeful they would find “all the parts” of the aircraft Monday and get its exact coordinates underwater.

“Yesterday when our divers went down, the visibility was very bad,” Supriyadi added.

Recovery crews nonetheless made some progress on Sunday, retrieving four more bodies and locating a fifth large chunk of the plane.

The discoveries came after Indonesia’s meterological agency said ice likely caused the plane’s engine to stall, and as the pilot’s daughter urged the public not to blame her father.

Searchers are hunting for the “black box” flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

Supriyadi said the search, which is being assisted by several countries including the United States and Russia, would expand eastwards Monday on suspicions that strong currents have caused parts of the plane to drift.

Several aircraft were making their way from Pangkalan Bun, a town on the island of Borneo with the nearest airstrip to the wreckage, to scour the sea’s surface. Speed boats were sweeping the coastline for signs of bodies that may have drifted to shore.

Supriyadi said the team was assessing whether to lift the discovered plane parts off the seabed or just find the “black box” flight data recorders.

“We hope to find the black boxes as soon as possible,” he said.

“If the tail is upside down and the door to the black box is in the mud, we need to dig the seafloor and that’s difficult. We are hoping the door to the black box is facing upwards so it is easier for us to fetch it.”

An initial report by Indonesia’s meteorological agency BMKG suggested the weather was the “triggering factor” behind the accident.

The report referred to infra-red satellite pictures that showed the plane was passing through cloud top temperatures of minus 80 to minus 85 degrees Celsius.

But it remained unclear why other planes on similar routes were unaffected by the weather, and other analysts said there was not enough information to explain the disaster until the flight recorders were recovered.

The operation has prioritized finding the bodies of the victims, of whom 155 were Indonesian, with three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a Frenchman — co-pilot Remi Plesel.

Some of the bodies have been found still strapped into their seats.

The daughter of the plane’s pilot, Captain Iriyanto, made a televised plea late Sunday urging people not to blame her father.

“He is just a victim and has not been found yet. My family is now mourning,” said Angela Anggi Ranastianis.

“As a daughter, I cannot accept it. No pilot will harm his passengers,” she told TV One.

In his last communication, experienced former air force pilot Iriyanto said he wanted to change course to avoid the menacing storm system. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after take-off.

Many of the victims’ relatives have gathered to wait for news and prepare funerals in Surabaya, where a crisis center has been set up for identifying bodies.

Indonesia has pledged to investigate alleged flight violations by AirAsia, saying the aircraft had been flying on an unauthorized schedule when it crashed. The airline has now been suspended from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route.

AFP Photo/Adek Berry

Bodies Recovered In Search For Missing AirAsia Flight

Bodies Recovered In Search For Missing AirAsia Flight

By Shashank Bengali and Ahmad Pathoni, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Searchers recovered bodies from the Java Sea on Tuesday and found what officials said wreckage from Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 as the three-day mystery over the plane’s whereabouts reached a heartbreaking resolution for the families of 162 people aboard.

“I am absolutely devastated,” Tony Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, said in a statement.

“This is a very difficult moment for all of us at AirAsia as we await further developments of the search-and-rescue operations but our first priority now is the well-being of the family members of those on board QZ8501,” he said.

AirAsia said debris belonging to its aircraft was found in the Karimata Strait — between Singapore and Indonesia — about 110 nautical miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun, on the southern edge of Borneo island.

The debris was about six miles from the last known location of the aircraft, which lost contact Sunday morning while flying in heavy thunderstorms to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia.

“It’s confirmed 100 percent that debris found in the sea are parts of the AirAsia plane,” search chief Bambang Soelistyo said.

Relatives who had huddled and prayed since Sunday at the international airport in Surayaba broke down and wept as television images showed rescuers being lowered into the Java Sea to retrieve swollen bodies floating at the water’s surface.

AirAsia said it would bring counselors and religious and spiritual personnel to the crisis center it has set up at the Surabaya airport to help the grieving families.

There were seven crew members and 155 passengers on board, including 137 adults, 17 children and one infant, the airline said. Almost all were Indonesians.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, speaking at the Surabaya airport, said, “I feel the loss and we all pray that all the families be given strength in this trying time.”

Widodo said that ships and aircraft on Wednesday would continue a large-scale search operation to locate and retrieve the remaining bodies.

“The focus should be to evacuate the passengers and the crew,” he said.

Indonesian planes involved in the search operation saw “an object that formed a shadow under the sea in the shape of an aircraft,” Bambang, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, said during a news conference in Jakarta.

Indonesia’s TV One said six bodies were spotted and three retrieved by search teams in the waters between the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The bodies were being taken by the Indonesian military to Banjarmasin, a port on the southern edge of Borneo, news media reported.

Officials at Singapore’s Changi International Airport issued a Twitter statement saying, “We are saddened to hear the latest news of #QZ8501. We are working closely with AirAsia on travel arrangements for the next-of-kin.”

Ships and aircraft from at least five countries have been searching across tens of thousands of square miles of sea and land between Indonesia and Singapore since Sunday.

A San Diego-based U.S. Navy destroyer, the Sampson, was heading toward the Java Sea and due to arrive later Tuesday to assist in the search-and-recovery effort.

Photo: Families of the passengers of AirAsia flight QZ8501 wait for news at Surabaya International Airport on Dec. 29, 2014 in Surabaya, Indonesia. The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 is likely to be at the bottom of the sea, the head of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency has said. (Imago/ZUMA Press/TNS)