Divers waiting to inspect the possible wreck of an AirAsia Indonesia jet off Borneo were unable to resume operations yesterday because of heavy seas, while an aviation official said it could take a week to find the black box flight recorders.
Crews were on standby to descend to a large object detected by sonar on the ocean floor at a depth between 30m and 50m.
Rescuers believe it is AirAsia Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200 carrying 162 people when it went missing on Sunday en route from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.
Photo: Reuters
“I am hoping that the latest information is correct and aircraft has been found,” AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes tweeted yesterday. “Please, all hope together. This is so important.”
However, Indonesian National Committee for Transportation Safety air safety investigator Toos Sanitiyoso said the flight data and voice recorders could be found within a week.
“The main thing is to find the main area of the wreckage and then the black boxes,” he told reporters.
None of the tell-tale black box “pings” had been detected, he said.
“There are two steps of finding the black box. One is we try to find the largest portion of the wreckage,” he said.
Divers would not be sent into the water without a target, search official Sunarbowo Sandi said.
“They wouldn’t go in without it,” he said. “The divers are not searching.”
Diver commander Lieutenant Edi Tirkayasa said the weather was making the operation harder.
“What is most difficult is finding the location where the plane fell — checking whether the aircraft is really there,” he said. “This is very difficult, even with sophisticated equipment. With weather like this, who knows? We are still hopeful and optimistic that they will find it. They must.”
An Indonesian official said on Wednesday that none of the bodies recovered so far had been wearing a life jacket.
“There is no victim that has been found wearing a life jacket,” said Tatang Zaenudin, deputy head of operations at Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.
“We found a body at 8:20am and a life jacket at 10:32am, so there was a time difference. This is the latest information we have,” he added.
The same official told Reuters earlier that one of the recovered bodies had been wearing a life jacket.
At least seven bodies have been recovered.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in