PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
Old 4th Jan 2015, 15:36
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BG47
 
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Times Strait reports:

“.......Five major parts of the Airbus A320-200 have now been found off the island of Borneo. But rough weather last week hampered the search, a huge operation assisted by several countries including the United States and Russia.

During a momentary respite from bad weather, a team of divers went down to the biggest part of the wreckage Sunday morning and recovered one body, while another three were found floating in the sea, bringing the total number recovered to 34.

The divers "managed to go down but the visibility at the sea bottom was zero, it was dark and the seabed was muddy, with currents of three to five knots," search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters.

He said the fifth major part of the plane, located early Sunday, measured about 10 metres by one metre.

The search, focused on a site southwest of the Borneo town of Pangkalan Bun, has also been extended east because parts of the plane may have been swept by currents, Soelistyo said.....”

Another article on Times Strait today reports:

"JAKARTA - The chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency Basarnas expressed optimism on Sunday that the black box of AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 was located "not far" from five large objects the search operation had spotted in the Java Sea.

"The black box should not be far from the five significant objects we found," Mr Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo told a media briefing at the agency's headquarters in Jakarta late on Sunday.
Officials had believed they were close to a major breakthrough after pinpointing five large objects on the sea floor thought to be parts of the Airbus A320-200 jet this weekend. But Mr Bambang Soelistyo noted the ongoing difficulty facing the multinational recovery operation: "Our challeng is mud. Lots of mud at the sea bottom.”.....Up to now, he said, no vessels had detected any signal beamed from the black boxes, or flight recorders. He said five vessels with the ability to locate black boxes will be assigned on Monday. The weather also remains a problem, he said. "Several (divers) tried to dive but had to return. Safety is also important for rescuers," he told reporters...."
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