Teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet have located four large objects in the Java Sea, Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency chief Fransiskus Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters yesterday.
The Indonesia AirAsia Airbus A320-200 plunged into the Java Sea on Sunday last week while en route from Indonesia’s second city Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board. No survivors have been found.
Indonesian officials were hopeful yesterday that they were honing in on the wreckage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 after sonar equipment detected four large objects on the ocean floor.
Photo: Reuters
Teams with a remotely operated vehicle were battling high waves and strong currents as they tried to capture images of the suspected debris for confirmation, Soelistyo said.
An Indonesian Navy ship detected the first two objects early on Friday and searchers later zoomed in with a US Geological Survey vessel to measure their dimensions. One of the objects was measured at 9.4m by 4.8m and half a meter high. The other was 7.2m by 50cm.
Yesterday, officials said they found two more significant objects, but dimensions were not available as of press time.
Photo: Reuters
“I’m confident this is part of the AirAsia plane,” Soelistyo said.
Indonesian authorities have announced the grounding of AirAsia flights from Surabaya to Singapore, with the Indonesian Ministry Transport saying the airline did not have a permit to fly on Sundays. However, Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority said that the airline had been approved to fly the route daily.
So far, 30 corpses have been recovered, a few still strapped in their seats.
It remains unclear what caused the aircraft to plunge into the Java Sea, though bad weather might 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.
As part of the investigation into the crash, autopsies will be carried out on some of the bodies, including the pilot and copilot, whose remains have not yet been recovered, said Budiyono, who heads East Java’s Disaster Victim Identification unit and, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.
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