Daily Mail reports:
A director from the Indonesian search-and rescue agency said readings detected on Friday suggest the black box may be outside the tail section of the plane. It comes as footage has emerged showing Indonesian military divers investigating the submerged tail of doomed AirAsia flight 8501, as search and rescue teams are hopeful that the black box from the plane's wreckage has been located. Having located the tail of the plane on Thursday, search teams began pressing ahead with their efforts to find the black box and retrieve bodies from the wreckage, and on Friday afternoon reported detecting 'pings' from the flight data recorder.
But Suyadi Bambang Supriyadi, director of operations of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency, said pings detected about 1km southwest of the wreckage suggest the black box may be located elsewhere, reports Business Spectator. Inside the wreckage: Divers search for AirAsia black box. The underwater searches ended before dusk on Friday, after divers were unable to find the black box Lifting balloons were loaded onto helicopters in preparation of recovery efforts to lift the tail out of the Java Sea, despite worries that the black box may have been separated from the tail during the crash.
Navy ships USS Sampson and USS Fort Worth have deployed helicopters and sonar devices into the Java Sea to aid the recovery operation off the coast of the Indonesian island of Borneo. Only 43 bodies have been retrieved so far, as monsoon rains and winds have caused choppy sea conditions and blinding silt from river run-off, reducing visibility underwater and preventing the removal of large pieces of the wreckage. Many of the other passengers are believed to be inside the wreckage of the plane's main cabin, which has not been located, due to strong currents moving debris around. At two weeks, most corpses will sink, said Anton Castilani, head of Indonesia's disaster identification victim unit, and there are already signs of serious decomposition.
'Divers have reached the tail part but ... the visibility was below one metre so they only managed to retrieve various debris,' said Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency. 'Now we are waiting for the speed of the current to ease. If it gets calmer later, they will go back to do another dive to determine whether the black boxes remained in the tail or were detached,' Mr Soelistyo said on Thursday. Divers travelled by rubber boat from the KRI Banda Aceh warship that was being stationed close to the site of tail wreckage, which Mr Soelistyo said would be lifted off the seabed by retrieval experts on Friday if weather permitted.
Lieutenant. Edy Tirtayasa, commander of Indonesia's navy rescue team, told Channel News Asia they planned to send two contingents to the plane. 'We are going to send down one observation team to take photos. Then two teams will do the recovery process -- to recover bodies if there are any,' he said.
[/B'If not, they will recover the black box for investigation and then other debris from the aircraft, he said.
[B]Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Indroyono Soesilo told reporters the black box would be analysed by experts in Indonesia when it was located.
It will provide essential information about the plane along with final conversations between the captain and co-pilot, despite the Indonesian meteorological agency indicating that weather was the 'triggering factor' of the crash, with ice likely damaging the engines of the Airbus A320-200. Five other big objects have been found on the floor of the ocean, though no visual confirmation has been obtained yet. Smaller pieces of the plane, such as seats and an emergency door, have been collected from the surface.