Indonesian search teams believe they have found the fuselage of an AirAsia airliner that crashed in the Java Sea two weeks ago, resulting in the loss of the 162 people onboard.
Searchers have also been hearing pings, believed to be from AirAsia Flight QZ8501’s two black boxes near where the tail of the Airbus A320-200 aircraft was raised on Saturday.
Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, said on Sunday a sonar scan had revealed an object measuring 10 metres by 4 metres by 2.5 metres on the sea floor.
“They suspect it is the body of the plane. There is a big possibility that the black box is near the body of the plane,” he said.
“If it is the body of the plane then we will first evacuate the victims. Secondly we will search for the black box.”
Forty-eight bodies have been found in the Java Sea off Borneo and if recovered, the plane’s fuselage is likely to contain the remains of more victims.
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.
Black Box
Three vessels involved in the search have detected pings about 4 km from where the plane’s tail was raised on Saturday, in water about 30 metres deep.
Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Santoso Sayogo said: "Three ships have (recorded) the pings so we can confirm the coordinates of the location of the black box."
Tonny Budiono, a navigation director for the transport ministry, said: “The black boxes are in a crushed part of the aircraft debris, making it very difficult for the team of divers.
“Because of time constraints, (we) have decided to retrieve the black boxes tomorrow morning by gradually shifting these layers of aircraft body debris.”
But if that fails, Mr Budiono said divers would lift the debris using inflatable balloons, the same technique used to lift the tail section on Saturday.
Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir, however, denied that the black box had been found, saying divers could not confirm its exact location due to poor weather and visibility.
If weather conditions are permit, officials say the black box could possibly be located on Monday morning.
On Saturday, divers attached inflatable balloons to the tail section of the aircraft, which was later hauled onto a rescue vessel.
AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather on December 28th, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia to Singapore. The cause of the crash is not known, but the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely a factor.
Reuters