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Weather stalls search for AirAsia black boxes; first victim buried
By Fergus Jensen, Gayatri Suroyo and Charlotte Greenfield
PANGKALAN BUN/SURABAYA, Indonesia Thu Jan 1, 2015 12:50pm EST
Relatives lower the coffin containing the body of Hayati Lutfiah, a passenger of AirAsia QZ8501, during her burial at a cemetery in Surabaya January 1, 2015. REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas
(Reuters) - Heavy seas stopped divers reaching the possible wreck of an AirAsia Indonesia jet off Borneo on Thursday and an aviation official said it could be a week before the black box flight recorders are found.
Nine bodies have so far been recovered from the Airbus (AIR.PA) A320-200, which crashed on Sunday en route to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya with 162 people on board.
The bodies were brought in numbered coffins to Surabaya where relatives have gathered for identification. AirAsia Indonesia's CEO Sunu Widyatmoko was seen weeping when authorities handed over the body of the first victim, Hayati Luthfiah Hamid, to family members at a Surabaya hospital.
Hamid, 49, was buried on Thursday before sundown in the suburb of Desa Sawotratap, a few kilometers (miles) from the city, at an Islamic ceremony attended by relatives and neighbors. Three members of her family were also on board the plane.
"Their house has been in a panic since Sunday," Umaroyah, a neighbor, said. "Everyone in the neighborhood knows someone who was on that plane."
Searches on Thursday spanned an area of 13,500 square km (5,200 square miles) involving 19 ships, four helicopters and five planes, said Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency.
A search and rescue pilot has spotted a large shadow in the sea, which rescuers believe may be the wreckage, but they have made clear the sighting is not yet confirmed.
"Until now, there hasn't been a confirmed finding or sonar image of the plane body under water," Soelistyo said.
Forty-seven divers are on standby to investigate.
"I am hoping that the latest information is correct and aircraft has been found," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted on Thursday. "Please all hope together. This is so important."
Toos Sanitiyoso, an air safety investigator with the National Committee for Transportation Safety, said it could take a week to find the black box. Committee head Tatang Kurniadi said the focus of the search, once the waters had calmed as expected in five days, was around the shadow.
"We are backtracking from where the wreckage was found to where the plane had its last reading and that is the focus of our search," Kurniadi said. "The depth around here is 50 meters. No specialist equipment (is required). Divers can go get it."
Investigators are working on a theory that the plane stalled as it climbed steeply to avoid a storm about 40 minutes into the flight.
"What is most difficult is finding the location where the plane fell - checking whether the aircraft is really there," frogman commander Lieutenant Edi Tirkayasa told Reuters. "With weather like this, who knows? We are still hopeful and optimistic that they'll find it. They must."
So far, as well as the bodies, debris including a suitcase, an emergency slide and a life jacket have been recovered from waters near the suspected crash site. No survivors have been found. All but seven of those on board were Indonesians.
Authorities have been collecting DNA from relatives to help identify the bodies.
"We are asking universities to work with us - from the whole country," said Anton Castilani, executive director at Indonesia's disaster victims identification committee.
Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis center at Surabaya airport.
"UNBELIEVABLY" STEEP CLIMB
The plane was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.
A source close to the investigation said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed.
"It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft," he said, noting that more information was needed to come to a firm conclusion.
Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.
The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, according to AirAsia Indonesia, which is 49-percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia (AIRA.KL).
Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
Separately, an AirAsia Indonesia pilot was taken off flying duties on the route from Jakarta to the holiday island of Bali on Thursday after a urine test indicated traces of morphine. The airline said he had been taking medication following an illness.
(Additional reporting by Michael Taylor, Cindy Silviana, Wilda Asmarini, Kanupriya Kapoor, Nicholas Owen, and Adriana Nina Kusuma in JAKARTA, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE; Writing by Nick Macfie and Peter Graff; Editing by Louise Ireland)
AirAsia pilot's son 'thinks daddy is still at work'
As the first two victims of the AirAsia disaster are identified, relatives struggle to break the news to the eight-year-old son of Flight QZ8501's pilot
Arya Galih Gegara, 8, the son of AirAsia QZ8501 pilot Irianto
By Tom Phillips, Sidoarjo
9:30AM GMT 31 Dec 2014
On Wednesday lunchtime, as the disaster's first two victims – a boy and a woman – were identified, a barefoot Galih dashed across the patio outside his home, apparently oblivious to the tragedy unfolding around him.
He skipped past his father's purple Honda motorbike, flashed a grin to his visitors and sped back into the house as if he had not a care in the world.
"We are protecting him from the news," his uncle explained once the boy was out of earshot. Televisions had been switched off in the house. Discussion of the catastrophe was forbidden when Galih was around.
"Slowly we will try to explain what has happened to his father. But it needs time. We still haven't worked out exactly how we will say it. I need time myself to accept what happened to my brother." Irianto's death was a severe blow for Budi Sutiono, a security guard and, like his brother, a flying enthusiast. One week earlier, his only other brother had died of a heart attack. That brother's body had barely been buried when Irianto was gone too.
"My parents have lost two sons in two weeks," he said, clasping his hands together as he struggled to maintain his composure.
"I believe this is God's will so it must be for the good of the family."
Since Sunday Irianto's home has been besieged by friends and relatives who remember a larger-than-life motorcycle aficionado who doted on two children, eight-year-old Galih and Angela, who is 22.
In the street outside, a tent has been erected between rows of mango trees to shield visiting mourners from the torrential afternoon rains.
Asked how Galih had reacted to the unusual number of guests, the boy's uncle said: "We have explained that his father has lots of friends and family and that they are coming here because they want to see us, that they come because they want to talk, that they come to maintain a good relationship with us."
He paused and stared down at his hands. "Yes. It is so hard to accept what happened. They were so close."
In a room next door Widya Sukarti Putri, the pilot's wife, lay in bed, waking occasionally to ponder the terrible fate that had befallen her husband and how she would tell their son.
Indonesian Navy personnel in a rubber dinghy recovering a body believed to be a victim of the crashed AirAsia airplane. Photo: EPA
Analysts have claimed the pilot of the crashed AirAsia flight may have made an emergency water landing, only for the plane to be overcome by high seas.
The A320-200 left Surabaya, Indonesia early on Sunday and disappeared from radar over the Java Sea during a storm, but it failed to send the transmissions normally emitted when a plane crashes or is submerged.
As search teams battled poor weather in the hunt for the black boxes, experts said the lack of transmissions suggested the experienced former air force pilot, Captain Iriyanto, conducted an emergency water landing that did not destroy the plane.
"The emergency locator transmitter would work on impact, be that land, sea or the sides of a mountain, and my analysis is it didn't work because there was no major impact during landing," said Dudi Sudibyo, of aviation magazine
Angkasa.
"The pilot managed to land it on the sea's surface," he added.
The plane, carrying 162 people to Singapore, was at 10,000 metres when the pilot requested a course change to avoid storms.
Although permission was granted to turn left, the pilot was not immediately allowed to ascend owing to heavy air traffic, and the plane disappeared from radar soon afterwards. Indonesia's search team scoured the sea for more than 48 hours before the first debris was spotted off the island of Borneo after a tip-off from fishermen.
So far, the search team has found eight bodies, but air safety officials said it could take a week to find the crucial black-box recorders.
An emergency-exit door and an inflatable slide were among the first items recovered by the search team, suggesting the first passengers may have started the evacuation process once the plane landed on water.
Two Indonesian officers from navy vessel KRI Bung Tomo guide a helicopter at sea on Thursday. Photo: AFP
Seven more bodies were recovered today as specialist teams continued to search for the wreckage of AirAsia flight QZ8501, which disappeared on Sunday carrying 162 passengers and crew.
It brings the total confirmed dead to 16, according to Associated Press.
A helicopter from the USS Sampson brought the corpses to Pangkalan Bun, the town nearest to the site off Borneo. They were unloaded and driven off in ambulances.
Rescuers hope the fuselage - if intact - will contain the remains of many of the nearly 150 passengers and crew still missing. The wreckage will be key to explaining what might have caused flight QZ8501 to go down.
A specialist black box search team sent by the French crash investigation agency arrived earlier on Friday after heavy seas forced divers to halt their search the day before.
France’s BEA crash investigation agency assists in the case of any air crash involving an Airbus aircraft because the company is based in that country.
"During the morning of January 2, local time, a ship will be taking the investigators to the search area, with detection equipment including hydrophones [underwater acoustic detection devices], in order to try to locate the acoustic beacons from the two flight recorders," BEA said in a statement.
An Indonesian search and rescue team at the airport in Pangkalan Bun carry the remains of an AirAsia flight QZ8501 passenger recovered at sea on Friday. Photo: Reuters
Search and rescue official Supriadi, who like many Indonesians uses just one name, said it was raining at the suspected crash site on Friday morning, with waves 3-4 metres high and wind speeds of 30-40 knots. Despite the difficult conditions, rescuers recovered seven more bodies at the scene.
The search for the AirAsia jet is unlikely to be as technologically challenging as the two-year search for an Air France jet that crashed into deep Atlantic waters in 2009 or the so far fruitless search for Malaysian Flight 370 which disappeared last year.
Given that Flight QZ8501 crashed in shallow seas, experts say finding the boxes should not be difficult if the beacons, with a range of 2,000 to 3,000 metres, are working.
More ships arrived on Friday with sensitive equipment to hunt for the plane’s fuselage.
“We will focus on underwater detection,” said Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo. He added that ships from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the US had been on the scene since before dawn on Friday to try to pinpoint wreckage and the all-important flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
A picture made available on Thursday shows Indonesian navy personnel recovering a body believed to be a victim of the crashed AirAsia airplane. Photo: EPA
The data recorder contains crucial information such as engine temperature, vertical and horizontal speed and hundreds of other measurements. The voice recorder captures conversations between pilots and other sounds coming from the cockpit.
Tatang Kurniadi, the head of Indonesia’s National Committee for Transportation Safety, said late on Thursday rescuers would use five ping locators – two from Indonesia, two from Singapore and one from Britain – once bad weather had eased and the waters had calmed as expected within five days.
Officials earlier said it may take as much as a week to find the black boxes, which investigators hope will reveal the sequence of events in the cockpit and in the heavily computerised jet’s systems.
The bodies were brought in numbered coffins to Surabaya where relatives have gathered for identification. AirAsia Indonesia’s CEO Sunu Widyatmoko was seen weeping when authorities handed over the body of the first victim, Hayati Luthfiah Hamid, to family members at a Surabaya hospital.
Hamid, 49, was buried on Thursday before sundown in the suburb of Desa Sawotratap, a few kilometres from the city, at an Islamic ceremony attended by relatives and neighbours. Three members of her family were also on board the plane.
"Their house has been in a panic since Sunday," Umaroyah, a neighbour, said. "Everyone in the neighbourhood knows someone who was on that plane."
Indonesian military officers carry wreckage from AirAsia flight QZ8501, lost over the Java Sea, at the military base in Pangkalan Bun. Photo: AFP
Searches on Thursday spanned an area of 13,500 square kilometres involving 19 ships, four helicopters and five planes, said Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency.
A search and rescue pilot has spotted a large shadow in the sea, which rescuers believe may be the wreckage, but they have made clear the sighting is not yet confirmed.
"Until now, there hasn’t been a confirmed finding or sonar image of the plane body under water," Soelistyo said.
Forty-seven divers were on standby to investigate.
"I am hoping that the latest information is correct and aircraft has been found," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted on Thursday. "Please all hope together. This is so important."
Toos Sanitiyoso, an air safety investigator with the National Committee for Transportation Safety, said it could take a week to find the black box. Committee head Kurniadi said the focus of the search, once the waters had calmed as expected, was around the shadow.
"We are backtracking from where the wreckage was found to where the plane had its last reading and that is the focus of our search," Kurniadi said. "The depth around here is 50 metres. No specialist equipment [is required]. Divers can go get it."
Investigators are working on a theory that the plane stalled as it climbed steeply to avoid a storm about 40 minutes into the flight.
"What is most difficult is finding the location where the plane fell - checking whether the aircraft is really there," frogman commander Lieutenant Edi Tirkayasa told reporters. "With weather like this, who knows? We are still hopeful and optimistic that they’ll find it. They must."
So far, as well as the bodies, debris including a suitcase, an emergency slide and a life jacket have been recovered from waters near the suspected crash site. No survivors have been found. All but seven of those on board were Indonesians.
A map with the mark "TKP", centre, believed to indicate the possible location of the wreckage of the AirAsia flight is seen onboard SAR ship Purworejo. Photo: Reuters
Authorities have been collecting DNA from relatives to help identify the bodies.
"We are asking universities to work with us - from the whole country," said Anton Castilani, executive director at Indonesia’s disaster victims identification committee.
Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis centre at Surabaya airport.
The plane was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.
A source close to the investigation said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed.
"It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft," he said, noting that more information was needed to come to a firm conclusion.
People pray after Friday prayers for the victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 at the national mosque Al-Akbar in Surabaya, Indonesia. Photo: Xinhua
Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.
The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, according to AirAsia Indonesia, which is 49-percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.
Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country’s aviation industry.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
Separately, an AirAsia Indonesia pilot was taken off flying duties on the route from Jakarta to the holiday island of Bali on Thursday after a urine test indicated traces of morphine. The airline said he had been taking medication following an illness.
AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished and was lost until wreckage and bodies were found two days later. Photo: Bloomberg
The aviation industry is good at getting passengers quickly from place to place, but does not move so fast when it comes to enacting regulations. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March prompted calls for all aircraft to be equipped with satellite tracking systems and a UN agency backed the idea. Yet the same questions were again asked this week after AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished and was lost until wreckage and bodies were found two days later. For the sake of safety, allaying relatives' anxieties and improving search-and-rescue standards, the dithering has to stop.
Real-time tracking has long been available, after all. Radar is useful in the busy flight paths of Europe and North America, but has limitations in less-developed parts of the world and is of no benefit over seas and oceans. Spy satellites can see objects the size of a golf ball from space and getting around cities is simple with GPS. Still, even after the outcry over the need for improvements to prevent another tragedy like that of MH370, the measures that were agreed to by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have still not been adopted.
Instantaneous data may not necessarily have saved the lives of the 162 people on board the Airbus flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, but knowing precisely where the plane was would have streamlined search-and-rescue operations. Airline companies are cautious by nature, though; small profit margins have conditioned them to usually make changes only if they are mandatorily required to. An ICAO taskforce that looked into international tracking systems agreed that aircraft should be tracked to within the nearest nautical mile, but there was no agreement on a timetable for deployment, in large part due to the costs involved.
Airline firms are spending millions of dollars to provide passengers with satellite-based broadband services. There is no reason why they should not also invest in satellite tracking. The industry has to make it mandatory: Only this way can all elements of doubt truly be removed from commercial flight.
Indonesia soldiers carry coffins containing bodies of the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 to be airlifted to Surabaya, at the main hospital in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 2, 2015. The investigation into the AirAsia crash has turned to the ocean floor, with more sonar equipment and metal detectors deployed today to scour the seabed for wreckage, including the plane's black boxes. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — After nearly a week of searching for the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, rescue teams battling monsoon rains had their most successful day yet on Friday, more than tripling the number of bodies pulled from the Java Sea, some still strapped to their seats.
Of the 30 corpses recovered so far, 21 were found on Friday, many of them by a U.S. Navy ship, according to officials.
The Airbus A320 carrying 162 passengers and crew went down Sunday, halfway into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore. Minutes before losing contact, the pilot told air-traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic.
It remains unclear what caused the plane to plunge into the sea. The accident was AirAsia's first since it began operations in 2001, quickly becoming one of the region's most popular low-cost carriers.
In addition to looking for victims, Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said ships from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. are scouring the ocean floor as they try to pinpoint wreckage and the all-important black boxes.
The data recorder contains crucial information like engine temperature and vertical and horizontal speed; the voice recorder saves conversations between pilots and other sounds coming from inside the cockpit.
Toos Saniotoso, an Indonesian air safety investigator, said investigators "are looking at every aspect" as they try to determine why the plane crashed. "From the operational side, the human factor, the technical side, the ATC (air-traffic control) — everything is valuable to us."
Bad weather, which has hindered the search for the past several days, remained a worry. A drizzle and light clouds covered the area Friday morning, but rain, strong winds and high waves up to 4 meters (13 feet) were forecast until Sunday. Strong sea currents have also kept debris moving.
That has severely slowed recovery efforts, as well, as bodies drift farther and farther away.
Col. Yayan Sofiyan, commander of the warship Bung Tomo, told MetroTV his vessel managed to pull seven bodies from the choppy waters on Friday, five still fastened in their seats.
Soelistyo, who was only able to confirm two victims in their seats, said a total of 30 bodies have been recovered. More than a third have been pulled out by a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Sampson.
Generally, aviation experts say the more passengers, luggage and parts of the aircraft that remain intact indicate the plane hit the water in one piece. That would signal problems like a mechanical error or a stall instead of a mid-air break-up due to an explosion or sudden depressurization.
Soelistyo pledged to recover the bodies of "our brothers and sisters ... whatever conditions we face."
Four crash victims have been identified and returned to their families, including a flight attendant and an 11-year-old boy.
After prayers on Friday, the holiest day of the week for Muslims, more than 200 people gathered at a mosque in Surabaya to remember the victims.
"We pray that the passengers in this AirAsia tragedy will be received by Allah," the imam said, "and that all their sins will be forgiven by Allah."
___
Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini, Ali Kotarumalos and Margie Mason in Jakarta, Eileen Ng in Surabaya, Indonesia, and Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.
Yonhap News Agency January 2, 2015 1:00pm
South Korean plane finds six bodies of AirAsia crash victims
SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Yonhap) — A South Korean maritime patrol aircraft on a search mission for victims of a crashed AirAsia jet found six bodies Friday, Seoul's defense ministry said.
The South Korean Navy's P-3C plane was dispatched on Tuesday to join the international search for AirAsia flight QZ8501 that smashed into the Java Sea last week with 162 people on board en route to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya.
A South Korean couple and their baby were confirmed to be on board the plane.
"The P-3C plane spotted six bodies presumed to be victims of the disaster at around 2 p.m. today (Seoul Time) at the Java Sea, and five of them were recovered by the Indonesian authorities," a defense ministry officer said, requesting anonymity.
The discovery brought the total number of victims of the deadly disaster to 22, he said, adding that adverse weather conditions hampered the recovery efforts.
"The operations to recover the remaining body have been under way, and the identities of the bodies found today would be confirmed later," the officer said. "We will strive further to find more victims."
So far, no one has been found alive.
South Korea plans to dispatch a seven-member government team to Indonesia on Saturday to help the search operations, according to the foreign ministry.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia
Officials carry what is believed to be debris from the crashed AirAsia plane after it arrives in Pangkalan Bun yesterday. Photo: Reuters
Indonesian searchers have located two "big objects" in the Java Sea which the search agency chief says are parts of the downed AirAsia flight QZ8501.
“With the discovery of an oil spill and two big parts of the aircraft, I can assure you these are the parts of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for,” search and rescue national agency chief Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo said.
The development came as Indonesia's transport ministry announced the flight had taken an "unauthorised" schedule, prompting it to freeze AirAsia's permission to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route.
The two objects are around 30 metres underwater and the search agency is attempting to get images using remotely operated underwater vehicles, Soelistyo added.
He said the larger of the objects was around 10 metres by five metres in size. The second is 7.2 metres by 0.5 metres, he said.
"As I speak we are lowering an ROV [remotely operated underwater vehicle] to get an actual picture of the objects detected on the sea floor. All are at the depth of 30 metres,” Soelistyo said. He added however that a strong current was making it difficult to operate the ROV.
Rough weather in recent days has hampered the search for the fuselage and black boxes of the Airbus A320-200.
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) personnel prepare diving equipment in the hunt for more victims of the crash. Photo: Xinhua
Despite rough seas, Indonesian recovery teams yesterday recovered 30 bodies, some still strapped together in their seats.
Two South Korean Orion surveillance planes spotted six bodies yesterday, Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said.
"After sweeping the area for more than two hours, at 11.58 the [Orions] found three bodies sitting in one row," he said, and another three just minutes later.
French and Singaporean investigators joined the search for the Airbus A320-200, which went missing en route from Indonesia's second city of Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board on Sunday.
Authorities dscovered AirAsia was not permitted to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Sundays and had not asked to change its schedule, A statement from transport ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said.
Director general of air transport Djoko Murjatmodjo said the plane took a flight time that had not been cleared by officials.
“It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that’s the problem,” he said. “AirAsia’s permit for the route has been frozen because it violated the route permit given.”
He said the freeze would be imposed until investigations were completed.
International investigators with sophisticated acoustic detection devices have joined the hunt for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 as teams continue to battle monsoon rains to recover bodies and debris from the plane, which disappeared from radar during a storm.
Twenty-nine ships and 17 aircraft scoured the now-narrower search area southwest of Pangkalan Bun.
The search zone spans 1,575 square nautical miles - one-tenth of the size of Thursday’s search.
An Indonesian man prays for the victims in Surabaya. Photo: AP
Two ships carrying hydrophones, or underwater listening devices, left the southern Borneo port of Pangkalan Bun yesterday.
They are using sonar and ping locators to fine-tune their search for the plane's black boxes - the flight data and cockpit voice recorders - which are crucial to determining the why the plane crashed into the Java Sea off Borneo.
"There are two main tasks in this priority sector - first, to locate the biggest part of the plane's body," Soelistyo said.
"The second task is to find the position of the black boxes, or flight recorders, which will be carried out by the KNKT [National Transportation Safety Committee] which start working today."
KNKT chief Tatang Kurniadi said 40 divers, including 20 deep sea experts, had arrived from Russia to help, along with two planes.
Meanwhile, relatives were preparing to hold funerals after three more victims were identified, including flight attendant Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, who had posted an Instagram picture with the message "I love you from 38,000 ft" for her boyfriend.
"I'm arriving in Surabaya to take Nisa (Fauzi) home to Palembang. I cannot describe how I feel. There are no words," AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes tweeted.
Also named was Grayson Herbert Linaksita, 11, who was travelling with his parents and 12-year-old sister for a holiday.
His great-uncle Bagyono Linaksita, 73, said he was dreading breaking the news to the children's grandmother, who was still on holiday in the Czech Republic. "We have not told her the news that the whole family had died in a plane crash. Grayson was her favourite grandchild. She will certainly faint."
The pilot of Flight QZ8501, Captain Iriyanto, had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a storm but his request was not approved
Due to other planes above him on the popular route, according to Indonesia's air traffic control. All contact was lost about 40 minutes after the plane had taken off.
Most of the passengers were Indonesian and the co-pilot Remi Plesel was French.
AirAsia flight has parallels with 2009 ocean crash
By LORI HINNANT
Jan. 3, 2015 7:11 AM EST
FILE - In this Thursday, Dec. 30, 2014 file photo, relatives of passengers of the missing AirAsia flight QZ 8501 react to the news on television of bodies found near the site where the jetliner disappeared, at the crisis center at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. It took nearly two years to find the black boxes from Air France Flight 447, but the Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight that fell into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of June 1, 2009, could offer insight into what may have gone wrong on AirAsia's Flight 8501.(AP Photo/Trisnadi, File)
PARIS (AP) — The jet dropped from the sky swiftly, without a mayday call. It was quickly swallowed up by the waves.
It took nearly two years to find the black boxes from Air France Flight 447, but the Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight that fell into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of June 1, 2009, could offer insight into what may have gone wrong on AirAsia's Flight 8501. Both flights killed everyone on board, both were flying into storms when they disappeared, and — in both cases — it seemed to the pilots of the Airbus that a climb was the way out of their predicament.
In the Air France flight, several factors converged to bring the plane down: The three pilots of the Airbus A330 were confused by faulty air-speed data after key sensors iced over. Then, about 25 minutes into turbulence, the autopilot and autothrust cut out, and the pilot at the controls began a steep climb, despite requests from the co-pilot in the cockpit to descend.
The captain, who had been away from the cockpit, returned about 90 seconds after the first stall warnings sounded. Four minutes and 23 seconds after the first alarms sowed panic and confusion over how to regain control of the aircraft, the plane slammed into the ocean, plummeting belly first at nearly 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) per minute. The wreckage was found 12,800 feet (3,900 meters) beneath the surface, its black boxes intact.
Above the Java Sea, the pilot of the AirAsia Airbus A320 told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but he was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude. The plane lost contact minutes later. Search teams have not yet found the black boxes containing the same crucial information that pinpointed the causes of the Air France flight.
Investigators from the French agency BEA, which investigated that 2009 crash, are in Indonesia. Sonar images have identified what appeared to be large parts of the plane, and the waters are far shallower than they were for the Air France crash, no more than about 100 feet (30 meters). However, the search has been complicated by strong currents moving the debris.
The 2009 crash ended up being, at least in part, a lesson in the hazards of automation. During that time, deprived of autopilot, the panicking men flying the Air France flight took actions that made matters worse, including trying to carry out different maneuvers simultaneously from both sets of controls. Since then, many have cautioned that pilots are often ill-equipped to take over when things go wrong.
"We see more-sophisticated automation in the cockpit really serves us well, and by and large it creates a safer environment for airline passengers. But there are times when that automation can become confusing, or there can be a disconnect between the pilots and the automation in the aircraft," said Deborah Hersman, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and now president of the National Safety Council, a private advocacy group in the U.S.
David Greenberg, a former Delta Air Lines executive who was hired at Korean Air to oversee pilot training and safety, said aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the FAA embraced the idea that automation could make flying safer, but more recently began to worry about the times when automation can't carry the day.
"The focus started to shift back to being capable of using the automation as an assist to reduce workload in the right circumstance, but being capable also of taking over and flying the old way," Greenberg said.
"In Asia, it's very normal to rely, in my view, excessively on automation," he said, "partly because the manufacturers stress that the airplanes are easy to learn and easy to train on and very safe because the automation narrows the gap between skill and required skill."
___
Associated Press airlines writer David Koenig contributed from Dallas.
Four 'large parts' of jet found underwater as Indonesia queries AirAsia licence
Indonesian searchers locate four "large parts" believed to part of the missing jet in the Java Sea as authorities announce an investigation into all the airline's flight schedules.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia
Officials carry what is believed to be debris from the crashed AirAsia plane after it arrives in Pangkalan Bun yesterday. Photo: Reuters
Indonesian and Singaporean search teams have located four "large parts" in the Java Sea which the search agency chief said late on Saturday are from the downed AirAsia flight QZ8501.
National Search and Rescue Agency Chief Vice Marshall Bambang Soelistyo told a press conference that the objects -- the largest of which is about 18 metres by 2.2 metres in size – were detected from Friday to Saturday by sonar from an Indonesian naval vessel, two Indonesian geological survey ships and Singaporean naval vessel RSS Persistence.
He said it was determined that the four objects, which are close to each other, are ”parts of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for” based partly on their dimensions and on the finding of oil slicks in that same area earlier on Friday.
”We tried to send an ROV [remotely operated underwater vehicle] to the seabed to get the visual images of the objects, but we failed due to strong underwater current, the speed of which was about 2 knots,” he said, while noting the objects are at a depth of about 30 meters. He added that the waves were as high as five metres.
The development came after Indonesia's transport ministry announced the flight had taken an "unauthorised" schedule, prompting it to freeze AirAsia's permission to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route.
The ministry would investigate all AirAsia flight schedules from Monday, a government official told reporters on Saturday, as part of a government probe into the crash.
"We are going to investigate all AirAsia flight schedules," Djoko Muratmodjo, acting general director for air navigation in the transport ministry said. "Hopefully we can start on next Monday. We won’t focus on licenses, just schedules."
"It might be possible to revoke AirAsia’s license in Indonesia," Muratmodjo added.
Indonesia AirAsia CEO Sunu Widyatmoko told reporters the company would cooperate with the government investigation, but declined to elaborate.
Indonesian navy helicopters take off from Surabaya to bring in more bodies, which were found by search ships. Photo: EPA
Rough weather in recent days has hampered the search for the fuselage and black boxes of the Airbus A320-200.
Despite churning seas, Indonesian recovery teams yesterday recovered 30 bodies, some still strapped together in their seats.
Two South Korean Orion surveillance planes spotted six bodies yesterday, Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said.
"After sweeping the area for more than two hours, at 11.58 the [Orions] found three bodies sitting in one row," he said, and another three just minutes later.
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) personnel prepare diving equipment in the hunt for more victims of the crash. Photo: Xinhua
French and Singaporean investigators joined the search for the Airbus A320-200, which went missing en route from Indonesia's second city of Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board on Sunday.
Authorities dscovered AirAsia was not permitted to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Sundays and had not asked to change its schedule, A statement from transport ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said.
Murjatmodjo said the plane took a flight time that had not been cleared by officials.
“It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that’s the problem,” he said. “AirAsia’s permit for the route has been frozen because it violated the route permit given.”
He said the freeze would be imposed until investigations were completed.
Workers carry a body bag of a victim of AirAsia Flight 8501 for identification at Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Surabaya. Photo: AP
International investigators with sophisticated acoustic detection devices have joined the hunt for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 as teams continue to battle monsoon rains to recover bodies and debris from the plane, which disappeared from radar during a storm.
Twenty-nine ships and 17 aircraft scoured the now-narrower search area southwest of Pangkalan Bun.
The search zone spans 1,575 square nautical miles - one-tenth of the size of Thursday’s search.
Two ships carrying hydrophones, or underwater listening devices, left the southern Borneo port of Pangkalan Bun yesterday.
They are using sonar and ping locators to fine-tune their search for the plane's black boxes - the flight data and cockpit voice recorders - which are crucial to determining the why the plane crashed into the Java Sea off Borneo.
"There are two main tasks in this priority sector - first, to locate the biggest part of the plane's body," Soelistyo said.
"The second task is to find the position of the black boxes, or flight recorders, which will be carried out by the KNKT [National Transportation Safety Committee] which start working today."
An Indonesian man prays for the victims in Surabaya. Photo: AP
KNKT chief Tatang Kurniadi said 40 divers, including 20 deep sea experts, had arrived from Russia to help, along with two planes.
Meanwhile, relatives were preparing to hold funerals after three more victims were identified, including flight attendant Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, who had posted an Instagram picture with the message "I love you from 38,000 ft" for her boyfriend.
"I'm arriving in Surabaya to take Nisa [Fauzi] home to Palembang. I cannot describe how I feel. There are no words," AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes tweeted.
Also named was Grayson Herbert Linaksita, 11, who was travelling with his parents and 12-year-old sister for a holiday.
His great-uncle Bagyono Linaksita, 73, said he was dreading breaking the news to the children's grandmother, who was still on holiday in the Czech Republic. "We have not told her the news that the whole family had died in a plane crash. Grayson was her favourite grandchild. She will certainly faint."
The pilot of Flight QZ8501, Captain Iriyanto, had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a storm but his request was not approved
Due to other planes above him on the popular route, according to Indonesia's air traffic control. All contact was lost about 40 minutes after the plane had taken off.
Most of the passengers were Indonesian and the co-pilot Remi Plesel was French.
AirAsia crash plane "was flying without permission"
As search teams find two large parts of the plane, officials say flight did not have permission to fly to Singapore on Sundays
By Tom Phillips, Surabaya
11:48AM GMT 03 Jan 2015
Bodies of victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 are lifted to Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh (Photo: AP)
AirAsia Flight 8501 did not have permission to fly to Singapore on the day it crashed into the Java Sea, transport officials have said as search chiefs said they had found “two big objects” believed to be from the missing plane.
AirAsia’s Airbus 320 disappeared around 40 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian city of Surabaya last Sunday morning with 162 people on board.
However, the company was only authorised to fly that route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Indonesia’s transport ministry said.
"It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that's the problem," Djoko Murjatmodjo, the head of air transport, told AFP on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear why AirAsia had been flying that day if it did not have permission. All the company’s flights from Surabaya to Singapore have now been ordered to stop. The transport ministry has announced a full review of all AirAsia flights.
Sunu Widyatmoko, the chief executive of AirAsia’s Indonesian subsidiary, confirmed government officials had suspended the airline’s permission to fly from Surabaya to Singapore but declined to comment further.
Meanwhile search teams operating in the Java Sea reported detecting an oil slick and “two big objects” believed to be parts of the plan’s main fuselage.
“With the oil slick that we found and the discovery of the two big objects, I can confirm that this is the big part of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for all this time,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told reporters.
Teams of divers were expected to explore those objects on Saturday, weather permitting.
As the search entered its sixth day, with around 60 vessels and 20 aircraft now involved, there was renewed speculation that “extreme weather” had contributed to south-east Asia’s third major airline catastrophe of 2014.
A 14-page "meteorological analysis" from Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said one likely scenario was that icing, caused by bad weather, had “damaged” the Airbus’s engines.
"This is however just one analysis of what likely happened based on available meteorological data, and is not the final determination on the cause of the incident,” said the report, quoted by Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper.
Tony Fernandes, the AirAsia chief, has hinted extreme weather played a major role in the tragedy. “What we are beginning to see is that there were some very unique weather conditions,” he said earlier this week.
“I continue to have full faith in our operations in Indonesia and elsewhere,” he added.
As Indonesian rescue teams flew the bodies of 12 more victims back to Surabaya for identification and burial, heart-breaking reports emerged about a 15-year-old Indonesian girl who lost her entire family in the tragedy.
Chiara Natasya Tanus, a Surabaya-born student who was attending school in Singapore, lost both parents and both brothers - aged 17 and 9 - in the crash. They had been coming to visit her for New Year’s Eve and when they did not arrive at Sinagpore airport as expected last Sunday she returned home to her dormitory.
“We were supposed to have the best time in Singapore - we planned to spend the rest of holidays together,” the orphaned teenager told Indonesia’s Jawa Pos newspaper.
“I was so excited. I was looking forward to showing my dormitory to my family,” she added.
Weather blamed for AirAsia crash, as Indonesia says jet flying unauthorised route
New revelations emerge that crashed plane's flight path was unauthorised as recovery teams find significant parts of wreckage in ocean
Bodies found at sea are flown to Surabaya yesterday. Photo: Reuters
Weather was the “triggering factor” in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 into the Java Sea a week ago with 162 people on board, according to Indonesia’s meteorological agency.
The Airbus A320-200 crashed during a storm en route from Indonesia’s second city Surabaya to Singapore.
While search teams hunt for the aircraft's black boxes that will tell what happened to the plane in its last minutes, an initial report on the website of BMKG, Indonesia’s meteorological agency, suggests the weather at the time the plane went down sparked the disaster.
“Based on the available data received on the location of the aircraft’s last contact, the weather was the triggering factor behind the accident,” said a report on the agency’s website.
The report said the aircraft appeared to have flown into storm clouds.
“The most probable weather phenomenon was icing which can cause engine damage due to a cooling process. This is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of existing meteorological data,” it said.
The statement comes as four large parts of the plane were found on the seabed, and as Indonesia pledged to investigate flight violations by AirAsia.
The country's transport ministry said the ill-fated aircraft had been flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed, and the airline has now been suspended from flying the route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore.
"It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that's the problem," director general of air transport, Djoko Murjatmodjo, said.
He said AirAsia's permit for the route would be suspended until investigations were completed, while other airlines in the country would also be examined.
"We will carry out an audit or an evaluation on all airlines in Indonesia over whether there are any violations related to route, time and schedule," he said.
Major parts of the Airbus A320-200 were found in the Java Sea off the island of Borneo late Friday and yesterday, raising hopes that the remaining bodies and the black box recorders, crucial to determining the cause of the crash, would soon be located.
But no bodies had been found since Friday, when the total recovered stood at 30, because rough seas had prevented diving operations, officials said. Toos Sanitioso, an investigator from Indonesia's KNKT (National Transportation Safety Committee), said he was hopeful they would find the all-important black boxes within a few days. "It seems that they have found the major [plane] parts," he said.
A presentation described one of the debris pieces as the "suspected tail" of the plane, but strong currents were making it difficult to operate a remotely operated underwater vehicle to get a picture of the objects that are 30 metres underwater.
The huge relief operation has been assisted by several countries, including the United States and Russia, but rough weather throughout the week has hampered the recovery of Flight QZ8501, which went down a week ago today during a storm.
A statement from the Indonesian transport ministry aid AirAsia Indonesia had not been permitted to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Sundays and had not asked to change its schedule.
But the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said it had granted permission for the airline's Sunday flight.It was unclear how the airline, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, had been able to fly without the necessary authorisation from its starting point.
AirAsia Indonesia chief Sunu Widyatmoko said the company would not comment until the results of the investigation were known, adding that the airline would "fully cooperate with the government in that evaluation process".
Before take-off, the pilot had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a storm, but the request was not approved due to other planes above him on the popular route, according to AirNav, Indonesia's air traffic control. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after the plane had taken off.
Members of Mawar Sharon church attend a prayer service in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015. About 40 members of Mantofa's church died in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 which took place on Dec. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)
SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) — Around 100 family members of AirAsia Flight 8501 crash victims sought strength Sunday, one week after the disaster, while bad weather again prevented searchers from reaching a large object on the ocean floor that is believed to be the fuselage.
Emotionally exhausted relatives sang and cried at a tiny chapel in Surabaya, the city where the plane departed from last Sunday with 162 crew members and passengers. The Rev. Philip Mantofa, who heads the congregation at the city's Mawar Sharon Church — where more than a quarter of the crash victims were members — urged those gathered to find comfort in their faith while embracing the reality that no one survived the disaster.
"If God has called your child, allow me to say this: Your child is not to be pitied," Mantofa told one Indonesian man seated in the front row. "Your child is already in God's arms. One day, your family will be reunited in heaven."
It is not clear what caused the Singapore-bound plane to crash into the Java Sea 42 minutes after taking off on what was supposed to be a two-hour flight. Minutes before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control that he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic.
Despite an intensive international search-and-recovery operation, only 31 bodies have been found so far, in large part because of bad weather. But after detecting what appears to be a massive part of the fuselage on Saturday, officials said it was possible that many passengers and crew will be found inside the wreckage.
Divers waited for breaks in the weather Sunday to reach the site, but rolling seas stirred up silt and m&d, leaving them with zero visibility, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency. They were forced to turn back because conditions were so bad.
"At this moment, it's impossible to send any divers," he said. "We'll wait until the weather gets better."
Twenty planes and helicopters were deployed Sunday together with 27 ships from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States. All were desperately searching for any sign of the all-important black boxes and pieces of the Airbus A320.
The investigation got a huge boost this weekend when sonar equipment identified five large objects on the seabed in the search area, but no images have been captured confirming they are part of the AirAsia plane.
The biggest piece of debris, measuring 18 meters (59 feet) long and 5.4 meters (18 feet) wide, appeared to be part of the fuselage, Soelistyo said. Four other chunks were found in the same area, including one detected on Sunday.
Suspected plane parts also were seen scattered on beaches during an aerial survey.
Indonesian authorities have announced the grounding of AirAsia flights from Surabaya to Singapore, with the Transport Ministry saying the airline did not have a permit to fly on Sundays. However, Singapore's Civil Aviation Authority said Saturday that from its end, the airline had been approved to fly the route daily.
AirAsia, which began operations in 2001 and quickly became one of the region's most popular low-cost carriers, said it was reviewing the suspension. The crash was the airline's first.
While Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, many of the passengers were Christians of Chinese descent. Mantofa's congregation was hit particularly hard, with more than a quarter of the victims — coming from 13 families — belonging to his large Penecostal church.
Following Sunday's chapel service, Edo Anggradinata, 52, said he was finally starting to let go of the hope that his sister and her two children had survived.
"My mind is still in a daze," he said. "If there is a miracle, I hope they are alive, but I know this is tough. I just pray that we find their bodies."
___
Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini, Ali Kotarumalos, Margie Mason and Robin McDowell in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
Wat a bunch of idiots.........can sing and cry at the same time some more......if God wants to take a life, no need to go worship him.
Some will say it is a test of faith and some will say it is the work of satan and yet some will say it is the original sin of Adam and Eve and this idiotic pastor says shit like no need to pity the victims as soon, the family will re-unite in heaven........wat a fucking load of bullcrap.......haha.
Ice might have caused AirAsia crash, Indonesia's meteorological agency says
Indonesia's meteorological agency says weather 'triggering factor' as three more bodies found
Indonesian Air Force crew members taking part in the search for the plane wait out a rain storm under a cargo plane. Photo: Reuters
Weather was the "triggering factor" in the crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 with icing likely causing engine damage, Indonesia's meteorological agency said, as divers found three bodies yesterday during a momentary respite from bad weather that has hampered rescue efforts.
The Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea a week ago carrying 162 people from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers are hunting for the "black box" flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.
An initial report on the website of BMKG, Indonesia's meteorological agency, suggested the weather at the time the plane went down sparked the disaster after it appeared to fly into the storm clouds. "The most probable weather phenomenon was icing which can cause engine damage due to a cooling process," said the report.
"This is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of existing meteorological data."
Five major parts of the Airbus A320-200 have now been found in the waters off of Borneo.
But rough weather throughout the week has hampered the relief process, a huge operation assisted by several countries including the United States and Russia.
As the weather cleared, a team of divers went down to the biggest part of the wreckage on Sunday morning and recovered three bodies, bringing to 34 the number of victims found, but bad conditions forced them to surface again.Search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said the fifth major part of the plane, located yesterday, was about 10 metres by one metre.
The search, focused on a patch of sea southwest of Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo, has also been extended east because parts of the plane may have been swept by currents, Soelistyo said. The relief operation top priority has been finding the bodies of those on board the ill-fated flight, of whom 155 were Indonesian, with three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a Frenchman - co-pilot Remi Plesel.
Indonesia has pledged to investigate flight violations by AirAsia, saying the ill-fated aircraft had been flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed. The airline has now been suspended from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route.
But the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said it had granted permission for the airline's Sunday flight.
Search for victims of crashed AirAsia plane resumes after FIFTH large piece of wreckage found - as bad weather that stopped divers from entering fuselage finally improves
A part measuring 18 metres by 5.4 metres is believed to be aircraft's body
Searchers came across 'four big objects' in the Java Sea near Borneo
On their second trip, they came across a fifth piece of the wreckage
This comes after a 14-page report filed by Indonesian meteorologists revealed icing may have been a cause of the crash
Four bodies were recovered on Sunday, with a total of 34, 128 still missing
There is 'zero visibility' at the bottom , strong tides and murky water
Plane crashed last Sunday, halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore
Divers will attempt again today to locate the large objects on the ocean floor believed to be the fuselage
By Chris Pleasance and Richard Shears for MailOnline and Louise Cheer and Sally Lee and Lucy Thackray for Daily Mail Australia and Khaleda Rahman for MailOnline
Published: 01:37 GMT, 4 January 2015 | Updated: 01:35 GMT, 5 January 2015
Divers have resumed the search for victims of the crashed AirAsia Flight 8501 after a fifth large object was located on the ocean floor.
Sonar equipment detected five massive objects, which Indonesian officials said they are confident is part of the wreckage.
The search has remained a struggle due to 'zero visibility', strong tides and murky water at the bottom of the ocean.
But with the weather improved today, divers will attempt again to locate the parts believed to be the fuselage of the flight that crashed more than a week ago, where most passengers are believed to lie still strapped to their seats.
Suryadi B. Supriyadi, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue director of operations, said: 'If it cannot be done by divers, we will use sophisticated equipment with capabilities of tracking underwater objects and then will lift them up.
'But today's searching mission is still, once again, depend on the weather.'
Search and rescue personnel carry debris of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 from a Singapore Navy helicopter
Search and rescue personnel carry a body bag containing a victim of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 at Iskandar Air Base in Indonesia on Sunday
Sailors from the US Navy's USS Fort Worth searching in the Java Sea for AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Bags containing dead bodies of the passengers of AirAsia Flight 8501 are lifted from a smal boat to Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh
A search diver overseas the transfer of recovered victims of the AirAsia plane crash
The search efforts have been seriously impaired by poor conditions, facing tropical storms which are causing strong tides and stirring up m&d on the ocean floor to cause extremely poor visbility
These images show parts of the recovered wreckage, including an aircraft window panel. They were recovered by the Republic of Singapore Navy
Divers from the National Search And Rescue Agency inspect their gear on KN SAR Purworejo ship today
The group of divers are part of the ongoing search and rescue operation in a bid to find the wreckage
Bad weather forced divers trying to identify sunken wreckage from the crashed AirAsia passenger jet to abort their mission on Sunday
An Indonesian diver from the rescue agency BASARNAS tries on his mask as he prepares himself for rescue
High waves and strong winds in the past few days had prevented divers equipped with cameras and sonar devices from scouring the sea floor to find more debris and bodies
A rescue boat is unloaded from the agency's ship during a continued search effort earlier today
Fully-equipped divers and other agency members board the rescue boat and make their way out to sea
The rescue team in the rubber dinghy can be seen beside the Indonesian Navy ship as they sail in rough seas
The remains of four passengers were found on Sunday, the eighth day of the search, bringing the total number of recovered bodies to 34.
There were 162 people on board and no survivors have been found. Three of the victims are from the US and the fourth is from Singapore.
Four 'big objects' were first located at the bottom of the Java Sea near Borneo.
Soon after a fifth piece of the wreckage was also found at a different location on the seabed, measuring 9.8 metres long, 1.1 metres wide and 0.4 metre high.
Basarnas chief Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo confirmed that, due to extremely poor visibility and currents of three to five knots, search efforts had been marred and divers have been temporarily stopped.
They hope to soon deploy a remotely-operated underwater vehicle.
The biggest piece, measuring 18 metres long and 5.4 metres wide, appeared to be part of the jet's body, Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency said.
It comes as Indonesian weather experts speculate icing of the engine could have been one of the possible scenarios that caused the plane to crash last Sunday, halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore.
Military airbase crew walk under the heavy rain at Iskandar airbase, Pangkalan bun, as bad weather slows down the search for victims and debries of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash on January 4
Indonesian Air Force crew members taking part in the search take shelter from an intense wait out storm under the tail of a cargo plane at the airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan
News of the fuselage comes as Indonesian weather experts speculate icing of the engine could have been one of the possible scenarios that caused the crash
It comes as Indonesian weather experts speculate icing of the engine could have been one of the possible scenarios that caused the crash
The discovery of the four large objects was made off the coast of the Indonesian island of Borneo
Indonesian Navy personnel carry a bag containing the dead body of a passenger of AirAsia Flight 8501 at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun
Bodies of victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 are kept inside body bags at the Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh
Search teams hunting for the wreckage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 have had a breakthrough after discovering two big parts of the aircraft
Rescue workers searching for victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 pulled 21 bodies from the Java Sea yesterday, the largest number so far, including five that were still strapped into their seats
Though strong currents and big surf have prevented divers from entering waters to get a visual of the suspected fuselage, officials are hopeful they will find many of the passengers and crew inside, still strapped in their seats.
There were 162 people aboard the plane, but after a week of searching, only 30 bodies have been found floating in the choppy waters.
Devastated family members came together today at a tiny chapel in Surabaya - the city the flight departed from - where about 40 victims had been members.
The Rev. Philip Mantofa, who heads the congregation at Mawar Sharon Church urged those gathered to find comfort in their faith.
'If God has called your child, allow me to say this: Your child is not to be pitied,' Mantofa said. 'Your child is already in God's arms. One day, your family will be reunited in heaven.'
Minutes before losing contact an hour into the flight on December 28, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic.
It remains unclear what caused the plane to plunge into the Java Sea near the island of Borneo, though bad weather appears to have been a factor, according to a 14-page report released by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.
'Flight 8501 appears to have been trapped in bad weather that would have been difficult to avoid,' the report said.
It also said: 'The most probable weather phenomenon was icing that can cause engine damage,' The Australian reported.
The family members of Wismoyo Ari Prambudi, a flight attendant on board the doomed AirAsia flight gather around his coffin in Klaten, Indonesia
As many of 34 bodies of the disaster have so been recovered and the identification process is taking place so they can be returned to their families
The mother of flight attendant Wismoyo Ari Prambudi speaks to an AirAsia pilot as her son's coffin arrives at a funeral home
Indonesian Search and Rescue personnels wear mask as they prepare to receive victims of AirAsia crash
Rescue workers carry a basket containing passenger's luggage to be taken to Bhayangkara Police Hospital for identification procedure
Indonesian soldiers place a coffin containing victims in an ambulance to be taken for identification
The coffin carrying a victim, although not identified, has a floral tribute on top as a matter of respect
Members of Mawar Sharon church attend during a prayer service in Surabaya, Indonesia on Sunday
Around 40 of the victims on the plane were members of the church - about a quarter of its congregation
Family members hold their hands up in prayer as they remember those who lost their lives in the plane crash
The Rev. Philip Mantofa, who heads the congregation at Mawar Sharon Church urged those gathered to find comfort in their faith
Today's finds bring the total number of bodies recovered to 30. There were 162 passengers and crew on board the Airbus A320-200 when it fell from the skies on Sunday
After being recovered from the ocean the bodies are placed in numbered makeshift caskets at a hospital in Pangkalan Bun, Borneo, before being flown back to Indonesia
A Russian search and rescue team carry their equipment after arriving in a Russian BE-200 amphibious aircraft in Pangkalan Bun
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency personnel prepare diving equipment to search victims of AirAsia QZ8501
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency personnel prepare robot diver to search for victims of AirAsia QZ8501
A catastrophic incident caused by icing alone in a modern aircraft that is the size of the missing AirAsia flight has not occurred in the past 30 years.
Icing happens when moisture from the atmosphere during severe weather converts into ice and could possibly then be sucked into an engine.
If that ice turns back into liquid and goes on to freeze a second time, it can end up snapping off large pieces of an aircraft's turbine blades or getting into the plane's ignition.
While the plane's black boxes - the flight data and cockpit voice recorders - have yet to be located, the discovery of the wreckage, especially if it is largely intact, would greatly benefit the investigation.
Given Flight QZ8501 crashed in shallow seas, international experts - armed with sophisticated acoustic detection devices - say finding the boxes should not be difficult if its locator beacons, with a range of 2,000 to 3,000 metres and a battery life of about 30 days, are working.
The objects on the seafloor were discovered Friday and Saturday, and an Indonesian Geological Survey vessel was used to assess their dimensions, Mr Soelistyo said.
In addition to what appeared to be a significant part of the plane's body, chunks of debris found in the target search area measured up to 12 metres long.
Other suspected plane parts were seen scattered on beaches during an aerial survey, Mr Soelistyo said.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes (R) attending a funeral ceremony for Khairunisa, a flight attendant onboardthe fatal flight
Medical teams have collected information from relatives on the victims, including their appearance, birthmarks and any surgical scars, in an attempt to help identify the bodies
Bodies in makeshift caskets are loaded into a military transport plane in Borneo before being transported to a police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, where families have gathered
Tributes to Hendra Gunawan Sawal, who was on board the flight, as family members held a prayer ceremony
Relatives of 22-year-old Kevin Alexander Soetjipto (22 year-old), at a cremation ceremony in Lawang today
Relatives and friends of Kevin Alexander Soetjipto pay tribute by his coffin, covered in hundreds of petals
A priest reads a passage during a cremation ceremony for Kevin Alexander Soetjipto in Lawang earlier today
Indonesian authorities announced the grounding of AirAsia flights from Surabaya to Singapore, with the Transport Ministry saying the airline did not have a permit to fly on Sundays.
But Singapore's Civil Aviation Authority said Saturday that from its end, the airline had been approved to fly the route daily.
AirAsia, which began operations in 2001 and quickly became one of the region's most popular low-cost carriers, said it was reviewing the suspension. The crash was the airline's first.
Strong currents and towering waves as high as 4 metres have slowed recovery efforts, scattering bodies and debris in all directions. The discoveries so far include an emergency exit door and slide, as well as a backpack with food and a camera inside.
As part of the investigation into the crash, autopsies will be carried out on some of the bodies, including the pilot and co-pilot, whose remains have not yet been recovered, East Java's Disaster Victim Identification unit's Budiyono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said.
A medical worker moves among the corpses at a makeshift morgue inside the police hospital in Surabaya, where the victims are taken for their relatives to identify
Around a third of the bodies found today were located by an American ship, the USS Sampson. Here American Navy personnel help unload corpses from a helicopter
Dive teams have been left frustrated after bad weather severely hampered search efforts, but today's operation has tripled the number of corpses recovered
Another body is unloaded from a US Navy Seahawk helicopter during the search and rescue mission today
Members of an Indonesian search and rescue team carry items for investigation, found during the search
Part of the plane found among the wreckage of the AirAsia flight in recovery mission in waters off Borneo
Indonesian air force members prepare their rescue equipment before departing for a search and rescue operation over Pumai Bay, Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia
Crew members of Indonesian Air Force NAS 332 Super Puma helicopter look out of windows during search
Generally, aviation experts say the more passengers, luggage and parts of the aircraft that remain intact, the more likely the plane hit the water in one piece.
That would signal problems like a mechanical error or a stall instead of a midair breakup due to an explosion or sudden depressurization.
For family members, the wait has been agonising, with local media covering every development and theory, many of which have proved to be untrue - including a false report that a body was found wearing a life jacket, which would have indicated passengers had time to prepare for the impact or miraculously were able to put them on after hitting the water.
With more corpses arriving in Surabaya, some relatives said they were simply worn out. But they were encouraged by reports that parts of the plane had been detected and hoped that everyone on board would be retrieved.
'Let's hope the news is true,' Ongko Gunawan, whose sister was on the flight with her husband and their child, said.
'We need to move on.'
On Friday, recovery teams pulled 21 bodies from the Java Sea.
Three bodies have been identified today, including that of Grayson Herbert Linaksita, an 11-year-old boy who has been reunited with his relatives
The family of Grayson Linaksita break down in tears as the body of the 11-year-old boy is handed to them
The body of an air stewardess, Khairunisa Binti Haidar Fauzi, was also among the three identified today
There were more emotional scenes at the police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, today as bodies of those who died were identified and handed over for burial
Kevin Alexander Soetjipto was the third passenger to be identified from dental records today, after the first passenger Hayati Lutfiah Hamid was identified yesterday
Vessels involved in the search for debris included at least eight sophisticated navy ships from Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and the U.S. equipped with sonars for scouring the seabed to pinpoint the all-important black boxes and the wreckage.
A second U.S. Navy ship arrived on Saturday to help in the search.
The hope, officials say, is that the body of the plane will still be largely intact, speeding the investigation.
'Many of the passengers believed to be still trapped inside the plane's fuselage and could be discovered soon,' Supriyadi said.
'God willing, we will complete this operation next week.'
The news four objects have been found in the ocean come after emotional scenes of three more victims who were identified being handed over to their families for burial at Surabaya hospital.
They included 11-year-old boy Grayson Herbert Linaksita and 22-year-old Khairunisa Binti Haidar Fauzi, an air hostess with AirAsia.
Of the bodies pulled from the ocean, about a third were found by American vessel USS Sampson, while five were strapped into their seats according to Colonel Yayan Sofiyan, commander of warship Bung Tomo.
Relatives of Hendra Gunawan Syawal, victim of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crash pray near his coffin at Adi Yasa funeral home in Surabaya, Indonesia
Workers carry the coffin of Meiji Thejakusuma, into Adi Yasa funeral home
The mother of Hendra Gunawan Syawal prays near her son's coffin at Adi Yasa funeral home
He added: 'From the operational side, the human factor, the technical side, the ATC (air traffic control) - everything is valuable to us.'
Drizzle and light clouds covered the area this morning, and rain, strong winds and high waves up to 13ft were forecast until Sunday. Strong sea currents have also kept debris moving.
The plane went down last Sunday about 40 minutes into a flight from Surabaya to Singapore.
Minutes before disappearing from radar, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching a storm, but was denied permission to climb above it because of heavy air traffic.
While the actual cause is unknown, one expert has theorised that the pilot managed to land the plane successfully on the ocean, before it was overwhelmed by waves and sank.
Indonesian Air Force personnel carry suspected debris after it was delivered by helicopter from a recovery mission for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 at the airport in Pangkalan Bun yesterday
Indonesian Airforce personnel recovered more debris from the plane on January 2
Relatives of AirAsia passengers arrive at East Java Police headquarters to help identify the victims
Relatives of Juanita Limantara, one of the victims of the crashed AirAsia airplane, during a ceremony for the families in Surabaya, Indonesia
Dudi Sudibyo, senior editor of aviation magazine Angkasa, said that emergency locator transmitters fitted to the plane were primed to go off in the event of a strong impact, but never triggered.
He says that if the captain, who was an experience pilot, managed to land safely before the craft sank, this could explain why no signal was transmitted.
However, other experts, examining radar data leaked from the investigation, disagreed.
Instead they said the plane was batted from the skies by immensely powerful winds that caused it to rise up at the same rate as a fighter jet, before dropping almost vertically into the ocean.
Their conclusion is that the Airbus 320-200 was in the grip of weather so freakishly extreme that there was nothing the pilots could have done to save the jet and all 162 people on board.
The plane behaved in ways ‘bordering on the edge of logic,’ Indonesian aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman said after examining figures leaked from the official air crash investigation team.
But Mr Soejatman said the jet climbed at a speed that would have been impossible for the pilot to have achieved - and then plunged straight down ‘like a piece of metal being thrown down.'
‘It’s really hard to comprehend…the way it goes down is bordering on the edge of logic.’
Australian aviation expert, Peter Marosszeky, from the University of NSW, told the Sydney Morning Herald that, in contrast, he was baffled by the extremely low speed of the descent - as low as 61 knots - which would suggest the plane was heading almost straight down, explaining why it has been found in water just 10km from its last point of radar contact.
Lt. Col. Johnson Simanjuntak of Indonesian Commander Air Field Iskandar Pangkalan Bun shows off parts of a plane found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight 8501 disappeared
Indonesian Air Force personnel carry suspected debris after it was delivered by helicopter from a recovery mission
Experts examining flight data leaked from the AirAsia crash investigation said the plane behaved in ways 'bordering on the edge of logic' after rising thousands of feet into the air before falling almost vertically
Both experts are in agreement that the jet went down almost vertically - and also concluded that a freak weather pattern that placed the aircraft under extraordinary forces was to blame for its plight.
Mr Soejatman meanwhile remains convinced that the reason for the crash is possibly because the aircraft was caught in a severe updraft, followed by an equally severe ground draft.
He said that leaked figures showed the plane climbed at a virtually unprecedented rate of 6000ft to 9000ft per minute and ‘you can’t do that at altitude in an Airbus 320 with pilot action.’
The most that could normally be expected, he said, would be 1000ft to 1500ft on a sustained basis, gaining 3000ft in a burst.
But then the aircraft fell at an even more incredible rate of 11,000ft a minute, with extraordinary bursts of up to 24,000ft a minute - figures higher than the Air France A330 Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, killing 228 passengers after attaining baffling ascent and descent rates.
Mr Marosszeky agreed that a climb rate of at least 6000ft a minute would indicate a ‘severe weather event,’ because that rate of climb was a ‘domain for jet fighters.’
In a fascinating, yet worrying, comment earlier in the week, AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes suggested that climate change was making weather worse and flying riskier,
rticularly in the tropics.
Meanwhile Mr Fernandes promised that he would fly with the family of flight QZ8501 and the body of stewardess Ms Khairunnisa to her home town in Palembang, Indonesia, once her body has been positively identified.
The stewardess was still in her red AirAsia uniform when she was recovered.
In a tweet, Mr Fernandes said that ‘if our beautiful and wonderful crew (member) is identified, we will go from Surabaya to Palembang with her parents. Heartbreaking soul (destroyed).’
AirAsia flight QZ8501: Crucial black boxes may not be found with wreckage after plane 'split or cracked' during crash
Officials think they have located the fuselage of the Airbus A320 using sonar – but no flight recorder 'pings' have been heard
Adam Withnall
Sunday 04 January 2015
Divers searching for the wreckage of the crash AirAsia passenger jet may be no nearer to finding its crucial black box flight recorders, officials say, even if they have located the body of the plane using sonar.
Five large objects have been found at the bottom of the Java Sea about 90 nautical miles off the coast of Borneo, and experts believe them to be parts of the Airbus A320-200 that plunged into the sea on route from Surabaya to Singapore last Sunday.
At about 18 metres (59 feet) long, the largest piece suspected to be the fuselage of the plane – but bad weather and strong currents have prevented searchers from making the relatively shallow 30-metre dive to verify this.
Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said the focus now was to reach that fuselage, where many bodies could still be strapped in to seats. “Our priority is to dive in the location we suspect parts of the plane to be,” he said.
But Soelistyo said none of the ships searching the area have detected any “pings” – locator signals sent out by black boxes in the event of a crash.
The flight recorders store critical data from the plane’s diagnostic systems, as well as up to two hours of audio from the cockpit, and represent the best chance for investigators to determine what happened to flight QZ8501.
Air Force Lt Col Johnson Supriyadi, a search and rescue official co-ordinating the operation, said it now looked like the boxes, located in the tail of the plane, had broken away from the rest of the wreckage.
"Based on the finding of pieces of debris it looks like the body of the aircraft split or cracked and was separated from its tail," he said.
Until the black boxes are found, the cause of the crash remains a mystery. BMKG, Indonesia's meteorological agency, has said bad weather may have caused ice to form on the aircraft's engines.
"The flight document provided by the BMKG office shows fairly worrying weather conditions for the aircraft at cruising level on the chosen route," the agency said in a 14-page report.
'No victim has been found wearing a life jacket', official says
Search teams have recovered 34 bodies from the 162 passengers and crew on board the plane in eight days.
The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate flies from at least 15 destinations across the sprawling archipelago.
The airline has come under pressure from Indonesian authorities, who have suspended its Surabaya to Singapore operations saying the carrier only had a licence to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Indonesia AirAsia said it would co-operate with the transport ministry while it investigates the licence.
A joint statement from Singapore's civil aviation authority (CAAS) and Changi Airport Group said that AirAsia had the necessary approvals to operate a daily flight between Surabaya and Singapore.
AirAsia plane forced to turn back; Tony Fernandes says fault not caused by stalled engine
Updated about an hour ago Mon 5 Jan 2015, 4:24am
AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes Photo: AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes said the latest incident was not caused by a stalled engine. (Reuters/Romeo Ranoco)
AirAsia has downplayed an incident that saw one of its planes turned back before take-off in Indonesia, a week after another of its jets crashed into the Java Sea with 162 on board.
Indonesia AirAsia flight 7633 was taxiing in preparation for take-off at Surabaya airport, where last week's doomed flight also took off, when a power unit used to start the plane shut down, an airline official said.
As a result, the pilot turned back to the gate, said Raden Achmad Sadikin, the director of Safety and Security at Indonesia AirAsia.
Local media in Indonesia and Malaysia had reported the Bandung-bound plane's engine had cut out after emitting a loud bang that terrified passengers, but AirAsia stressed it was a minor incident.
"It's not that the engine failed. The plane wanted to take off but the APU [auxiliary power unit], which is the equipment that helped to start the engine, suddenly shut down," Mr Sadikin said.
The plane later landed safely at its destination in West Java after undergoing a check, Indonesia AirAsia chief executive Sunu Widyatmoko was quoted by local media as saying.
AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes lashed out at the initial media reports, calling the headlines "sensational" and "silly".
Mr Fernandes urged staff to remain strong.
"Facts will come out. As I have said we are calm, will take the hits now as our focus is families. But time will show what AirAsia is all about," he tweeted.
Divers resume search for missing jet
Meanwhile, Indonesian officials said weather was the "triggering factor" in last week's crash of AirAsia flight 8501, with icing likely causing engine damage after the plane flew into a storm.
Calmer waters enabled Indonesian navy divers on Monday to resume efforts to identify suspected wreckage from the missing passenger jet.
The main focus of the search is about 90 nautical miles off the coast of Borneo island, where five large objects believed to be parts of the plane - the largest about 18 metres long - have been pinpointed in shallow waters by ships using sonar.
No signal has been detected yet from the black box recorders.
The seas haven't been very friendly, but the black boxes have a 30-day life and they will be able to find them.
Aviation expert Peter Marosszeky
Both flight recorders are located near the tail of the Airbus, but it was unclear whether that part of the aircraft was among the debris found on the seabed.
"The weather is quite conducive. The visibility is six kilometres, there's no low cloud, the wind is calm," Air Force lieutenant colonel Jhonson Supriadi said.
"With our calculations of currents this strong, every day this operational area is extended."
Peter Marosszeky, a senior aviation research fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the weather was squarely to blame for the delay in finding the black box recorders, which are designed to emit pings that can be detected by sonar for a month after a crash.
"The seas haven't been very friendly, but the black boxes have a 30-day life and they will be able to find them, particularly in the shallow waters," he said.
"It's the weather that is causing the delay."
Thirty-four bodies of the mostly Indonesian passengers and crew have so far been recovered.
The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the Malaysia-based budget carrier, whose Indonesian affiliate flies from at least 15 destinations across the sprawling archipelago.
Crew of Indonesian Air Force C-130 airplane of the 31st Air Squadron scan the horizon during a search operation for the missing AirAsia flight 8501 over the waters of Karimata Strait in Indonesia. Photo: AP
The daughter of AirAsia flight QZ8501's captain made a televised plea urging people not to blame her father over the tragedy, as searchers resumed hunting for the wreckage and black boxes that would reveal why the plane crashed.
“He is just a victim and has not been found yet. My family is now mourning,” said Angela Anggi Ranastianis, daughter of Indonesia AirAsia pilot Captain Iriyanto.
“As a daughter, I cannot accept it. No pilot will harm his passengers,” she told TV One. When news broke of the plane's disappearance last month, the girl posted on social media: "Papa, come back. I still need you."
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.
Indonesian navy divers took advantage of calmer waters today to resume efforts to identify suspected wreckage from the missing AirAsia jet after five large objects were spotted on sonar.
But there was with no signal detected yet from the black box recorders as the search entered its eighth day.
Ships and aircraft seeking debris and bodies from the crashed AirbusA320-200 widened their search area amid strong currents. Helicopters will search coastal areas.
A search team unloads a rubber boat from their ship during a search operation. Photo: AP
Thirty-four bodies have so far been retrieved from the Java Sea, including some still strapped to their seats, and have been brought to shore in simple, numbered coffins. None of the 162 passengers and crew onboard survived.
Indonesia’s military chief General Moeldoko said today he had offered to take victims’ relatives out to the crash site to pay their respects.
“We will bring them to the navy ships and we will take them to the location to scatter flowers, and I hope coming to the location can reduce their sadness and the feeling of loss,” he told reporters.
The main focus of the search is about 90 nautical miles off the coast of Borneo island, where objects – the largest about 18 metres long and believed to be the fuselage – have been pinpointed in shallow waters by ships using sonar.
“The weather is quite conducive. The visibility is six kilometres, there’s no low cloud, the wind is calm,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jhonson Supriadi said. “With our calculations of currents this strong, every day this operational area is extended.”
Sailors from the US Navy's USS Fort Worth help in the search. Photo: Reuters
Indonesia’s meteorological agency has said seasonal tropical storms probably contributed to the January 28 crash, with icing likely causing engine damage after it flew into a storm.
The weather has persistently hampered efforts to recover bodies and find the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that should explain why the plane crashed.
Both flight recorders are located near the tail of the Airbus, but it was unclear whether that part of the aircraft was among the debris found on the seabed.
Peter Marosszeky, a senior aviation research fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the weather was squarely to blame for the delay in finding the black box recorders, which are designed to emit pings that can be detected by sonar for a month after a crash.
“The seas haven’t been very friendly, but the black boxes have a 30-day life and they will be able to find them, particularly in the shallow waters,” he said. “It’s the weather that is causing the delay.”
“If it cannot be done by divers, we will use sophisticated equipment with capabilities of tracking underwater objects and then will lift them up,” said Suryadi B. Supriyadi, Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue director of operations.
Nine ships from four countries have converged on the area, with teams of divers including seven Russian experts standing ready, but strong winds and four-metre high waves have kept progress agonisingly slow.
The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate flies from at least 15 destinations across the sprawling archipelago.
Crews of search and rescue carry a body bag containing the victim of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 from a Singapore Navy helicopter at Iskandar Air Base, Pangkalan Bun. Photo: Xinhua
The airline, which is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia, has come under pressure from Indonesian authorities, who have suspended its Surabaya to Singapore operations saying the carrier only had a licence to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Indonesia AirAsia said it would co-operate with the transport ministry while it investigates the licence.
However, Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority said that from its end, the airline had been approved to fly the route daily.
On Sunday, an AirAsia flight scheduled to depart from Surabaya airport turned back when a power unit used to start the plane shut down, emitting a loud bang that terrified passengers,
But AirAsia stressed it was a minor incident and that it was a power, not engine, failure. The plane later landed safely at its destination in West Java after undergoing a check, Indonesia AirAsia chief executive Sunu Widyatmoko said.
