Indonesian salvage teams yesterday launched an operation to raise the fuselage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 from the seabed as they recovered four more bodies from the jet’s wreckage.
The bid came a day after divers were for the first time able to enter the main section of the airliner, which crashed in the Java Sea last month. Difficult weather conditions for the past week had stopped rescuers reaching the main part of the Airbus A320-200 since it was spotted by a military vessel earlier this month.
“We have begun the operation to lift the main body and we hope we can float it today,” Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency operations coordinator S.B. Supriyadi told reporters.
Just after dawn yesterday, divers began descending to the seafloor to tie floatation bags to the fuselage, navy official Rasyid Kacong said, while overseeing the lifting operation from aboard the Banda Aceh warship.
However, the team failed to float the main body on their first attempt, as the ropes snapped before the fuselage could be brought to the surface.
“We are now trying again and it is in the process,” Kacong said.
Four bodies believed to have come from inside the fuselage were retrieved as the team tried to lift the main section, bringing the total bodies recovered to 69, officials said.
The previous day, a jumble of wires and seats floating inside the fuselage prevented the divers from entering further to find more bodies.
“The divers said it was dark inside, the seats where floating about and the wires were like tangled yarn,” Supriyadi said.
The rescuers hope that once the fuselage is lifted, it will be easier to inspect the inside of the main body and retrieve more bodies, he added.
The jet’s black boxes — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — were recovered last week, and investigators are analyzing them.
Flight QZ8501 went down on Dec. 28 last year in stormy weather, during what was supposed to be a short trip to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya. There were 162 people on board.
Indonesian Minister of Transportation Ignasius Jonan said last week that the aircraft climbed abnormally quickly before stalling and plunging into the sea. Just moments before the flight disappeared from radar, its pilot had asked to climb to avoid a major storm, but was not immediately granted permission due to heavy air traffic.
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