AirAsia tail found, raising hopes of black boxes
Print Edition
INDONESIA said yesterday it had found the tail of an AirAsia plane that crashed into the sea with 162 people on board, raising hopes of finding its black boxes and explaining the disaster.
Search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said he was sure of the discovery after divers took photographs of the tail, wedged into the seabed 30 meters underwater, on which the company’s logo could be seen.
“We have successfully obtained part of the plane that has been our target. The tail portion has been confirmed found,” Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta.
AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished from radar screens during a storm on December 28 when it was flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. All but seven of those on board were Indonesian.
The Indonesian meteorological agency said weather was the “triggering factor” of the crash in the Java Sea, with ice likely damaging the engines of the Airbus A320-200. But a much clearer explanation is not possible without the black boxes, which record the pilots’ voices as well as flight information. They were housed in the aircraft’s tail.
“I am led to believe the tail section has been found. If right part of tail section then the black box should be there,” AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes wrote on Twitter after the announcement.
“We need to find all parts soon so we can find all (our) guests to ease the pain of our families. That still is our priority.”
So far 40 bodies have been found, all of them floating at sea.
Indonesia’s transport ministry said yesterday that it had fired one transport official and disciplined several others in a crackdown following the crash, as it investigated how the flight was able to depart without permission.
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