Two local fisherman have been the crucial links in finding the QZ8501 wreck site. One heard the aircraft crash, one other saw the panel wreckage in the water Sunday morning and dismissed it as unimportant flotsam.
Neither knew an aircraft had crashed - although the bloke who heard the 'BOOM!', thought it might have been an aircraft crashing.
Two other fisherman claim they saw an aircraft dropping towards the sea, but it went from their view before it crashed (no doubt due to heavy cloud).
Fisherman crucial factor in locating AirAsia wreckage site
"The missing Air Asia aircraft was discovered by a 38-year-old Indonesian fisherman named Mohammed Taha, who did not yet know a plane had disappeared and assumed the debris was ocean junk.
Mr Taha, from the small village of Belinyu, spent Sunday on his small fishing boat and spotted some metal objects in the water. But he did not return home until Monday night.
When he arrived in his village, he heard the news about the missing Air Asia flight QZ8501. He later said he was familiar with the airline’s red logo and recalled that some of the floating objects had been red.
“I found a lot of debris – small and large - in the Tujuh islands,” Mr Taha said.
“The largest was four metres [13 feet] long and two metres wide [seven feet]. They were red coloured with white silver. It looked like the Air Asia colours.”
Mr Taha immediately called Bagus Rai, his local police officer, and provided an account, including the location.
Officer Rai contacted the search authority, which organised an aerial search for the following morning. At 8.00am, the objects were spotted.
More air searches revealed that the objects included the exit door and were from the plane.
“The fisherman said he saw the debris looked like the body of a plane,” officer Rai said. “He did not bring the debris back. We then planned to do the search.”
Thousands of fishermen along the Indonesian coast have assisted with the search after being contacted by the authorities to keep a lookout for debris.
But Taha, who had not received the advice, was not among them, and had no idea about the multinational search. He subsequently volunteered to assist during Tuesday’s operations."
On that basis, the cheapest and simplest air crash feedback information system, would be to equip all local peasant fishermen with good communication devices, keep them all up to date on missing aircraft, and ensure they relate anything they have seen in that area, when an aircraft goes missing.
After all, aircraft that crash on land are usually found within a short space of time - it's the ones that disappear into large bodies of water that create all the angst, and the huge SAR costs.