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 Indonesian officials believe they may have located the tail and
parts of the fuselage of the Airbus <AIR.PA> A320-200 at the bottom
of the Java Sea, but strong currents, high winds and big waves have
hindered attempts to investigate the debris.
Flight QZ8501 plunged into the water off Borneo island on Dec. 28,
about 40 minutes into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's
second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no
survivors among the 162 people on board.
Jakarta has launched a crackdown on its fast-growing aviation sector
since the crash, reassigning some officials and tightening rules on
pre-flight procedures in a country with a patchy reputation for air
safety.
"Today's weather is friendly, the team can work," the head of
Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo,
told a news conference in Jakarta.
Soelistyo said the multinational air and sea operation had two
objectives: to recover bodies and wreckage floating in an
ever-widening search area in the northern Java Sea, and to find
wreckage and the plane's black box on the ocean floor.
 The latter effort is focused on an area about 90 nautical miles off
Borneo, where ships using sonar have located five large objects
believed to be parts of the plane - the largest about 18 meters (59
feet) long - in shallow water.
Search and rescue agency official Supriyadi, who is coordinating the
operation from the southern Borneo town of Pangkalan Bun, said there
had been no "pings" detected from the black box's emergency locator
beacon, possibly because it was buried in the seabed or the muddy
water was impeding its signal.
"They haven't found anything, maybe because the water is turbid and
there is zero visibility," he said. "There's a possibility it is
buried in mud."
The captain of an Indonesian navy patrol vessel said on Monday his
ship had found what was believed to be the tail - a key find since
that section of the aircraft houses the cockpit voice and flight
data recorders - but Soelistyo said that could not be confirmed.
Only 37 bodies of the mostly Indonesian passengers and crew have
been recovered. Many more could still be trapped in the fuselage of
the aircraft.
AVIATION CRACKDOWN
The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia
budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate has come under criticism
from the authorities in Jakarta since the disaster.
The transport ministry has suspended Indonesia AirAsia's
Surabaya-Singapore license, saying the carrier only had permission
to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday.
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Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia
<AIRA.KL>, has made little comment, but said it would fully
cooperate with investigations.
Indonesia's financial regulator said it did not believe the issue of
whether the airline had the correct flight permits would affect
insurers paying out on claims.
"AirAsia didn't fall because it was a Sunday," Firdaus Djaelani,
non-bank financial institutions supervisor at the financial services
authority, told reporters in Jakarta.
While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather
bureau has said the seasonal tropical storms common in the area were
likely to be a factor. Last week, the authorities questioned whether
the pilot had followed proper weather procedures.
On Monday, the transport ministry said officials at the airport
operator in Surabaya and air traffic control agency who had allowed
the flight to take off had been moved to other duties while the
accident investigation is completed.
It also said it had issued a directive making it mandatory for
pilots to be briefed face-to-face by an airline flight operations
officer on weather conditions and other operational issues before
every flight.
Indonesia is one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets and
its carriers, such as Lion Air and Garuda Indonesia <GIAA.JK>, are
among the top customers for plane makers Airbus and Boeing <BA.N>.
But its safety record is chequered. The European Commission banned
all Indonesia-based airlines from flying to the European Union in
2007 following a series of accidents. Exemptions to that ban have
since been granted to some carriers, including Garuda and AirAsia.
(Additional reporting by Wilda Asmarini, Adriana Nina Kusuma,
Michael Taylor, Eveline Danubrata, Nilufar Rizki, Charlotte
Greenfield and Fransiska Nangoy in Jakarta/Surabaya; Writing by Alex
Richardson; Editing by Nick Macfie and Robert Birsel)
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