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Search teams hunting for AirAsia Flight 8501 with 162 people on board find four large plane parts on sea bed but haven't been able to take images of the suspected wreck yet. Mana Rabiee reports.
Indonesian navy personnel lay down plastic bags containing bodies of victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 found at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, on Saturday.(Photo: Adek Berry, AP)
Divers are battling rain and rolling waves in their effort to locate the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 after four large objects were detected on the ocean floor Saturday, which Indonesian officials appeared confident were are from the jet that crashed with 162 people aboard.
"We've found four big parts from the plane we're looking for," search-and-rescue agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta on Saturday, Reuters reported.
The largest piece — measuring 59 feet long and 18 feet wide — is believed to be part of the jet's body, Soelistyo said. Other debris in the area measured up to 39 feet long. The objects were found Friday and Saturday using sonar equipment.
Divers were initially unable to enter the water to get a visual due to strong currents and high surf. Poor visibility hampered efforts to take photos of the objects with underwater remote operating vehicles, Reuters reported.
After a nearly week-long search, just 30 bodies have been pulled from the water. Officials said they expect to find many of the 162 passengers and crew still strapped to their seats inside the plane.
"Many of the passengers are believed to be still trapped inside the plane's fuselage and could be discovered soon," said rescue official Supriyadi, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "God willing, we will complete this operation next week."
The Airbus A320-200 crashed Sunday on a two-hour flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore.
The discovery of the massive objects came as Indonesian authorities grounded AirAsia flights from Surabaya to Singapore, saying the airline did not have a license for the route for Sunday flights. However, Singapore's Civil Aviation Authority said the airline had been approved to fly the route daily.
No definitive cause for the crash had been determined, but weather could have played a role. The jet's last communication indicated pilots were worried about bad weather. They sought permission to climb above threatening clouds but were denied because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the airliner disappeared from radar without issuing a distress signal.
"Flight 8501 appears to have been trapped in bad weather that would have been difficult to avoid," according to a 14-page report released by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.
The jet's all-important black boxes — which have yet to be located — will likely shed light on the plane's final moments and should contain the pilots' dialogue, along with hundreds of streams of information about how the plane was behaving.
At least eight navy ships from Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and the U.S. have been involved in the search for the black boxes and the wreckage.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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