|
 Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic
control during bad weather on Dec. 28, less than half way into a
two-hour flight from Indonesia to Singapore. There were no
survivors.
Forty-eight bodies, including at least two strapped to their seats,
have been found in the Java Sea off Borneo.
Search and rescue teams detected pings they believed were from the
flight recorders on Friday and two teams of divers resumed the hunt
soon after dawn on Saturday.
The tail of the Airbus A320-200 was found on Wednesday, upturned on
the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane's last known
location at a depth of about 30 meters (100 feet).
Crews brought it up from the bottom with the help of air bags.
"Yes, the tail is already on the surface," Supriyadi, operations
coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, told
reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search
effort on Borneo.
 "It's currently being brought close to a ship and then it will be
towed. And then they want to search for the black box."
The aircraft carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders -
or black boxes - near its tail.
However, officials had said earlier it looked as if the recorders,
which will be vital to the investigation into why the airliner
crashed, had become separated during the disaster.
"The divers looked for the black box but they didn't find it,"
Supriyadi said. "But it has to be checked again. Lifted and checked
again."
He said it could take up to 15 hours to tow the tail to land.
"LARGE AREA"
Strong winds, currents and high waves have been hampering efforts to
reach other large pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on
the sea floor, and to find the remaining victims.
On Friday, Supriyadi said the pings were believed to have been
detected about 1 km (half a mile) away from the tail.
If the recorders had become separated from the tail they could be
covered in mud, making the search in the murky water that much more
difficult, he said.
[to top of second column] |
"The pings can only be detected within a radius of 500 meters (1,640
feet) so it can be a large area to cover," he said.
If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital,
Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download
data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed
in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged.
While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather
bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor.
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.
The pilots did not issue a distress signal.
The Indonesian captain, a former Air Force fighter pilot, had 6,100
flying hours and the plane last underwent maintenance in
mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by
Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines
and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget
operations began in 2002.
Most of those on board were Indonesians.
(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Fergus Jensen and Jeremy
Laurence)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
