"The Indonesian admiral in charge of operations to recover AirAsia flight
QZ8501 has told the BBC the fuselage may be too fragile to be lifted.
Rear Admiral Widodo's comments came after a renewed attempt to raise the wreckage from seabed failed when it kept breaking into pieces."
The fragility should not be surpring in general, and is certainly no surprise when you look at even the fuzzy under water pictures.
I have not seen any in-depth official statements on the lifting goal and strategy - what is exactly meant to be achieved. If a poster has some info on it, I would be interested. The goals are probably interesting for many posters, the lifting strategy probably for less.
What one would expect in a 'global attention' case like this is to get some international professional salvage guys in. I have seen foreign aerospace expert involved but not underwater salvage guys. Expertise is expertise, both up and below. Such an approach would not 'lose face'. It is common international practice. These specialists may have a row of proven options in mind.
A few days ago I was thinking ... most shipbuilding having moved to Asia... dont they have a floating/semisubmersible 2nd hand shipdock somewhere, float that to the location, submerse it as required, and get wreckage in without having to lift much, not having to take risks breaking the surface, and even more when lifting, and later more when tying on deck, with these risks repeated in the next land-based phases...? With this option you could collect the lot in situ with less risk. Later tow the dock to shore. De-ballast, and there you are. You even have a longer weather window with this....
For the smaller parts you might also take a few, certainly available, shipping containers (20 or 40x8x8 foot), reinforce them, make a few holes in them, cover the holes with a mesh, sink them on locations, and repeat what I just said for the shipdock. Bonus advantage is, container lifting gear is standard. And it might even help the divers in a number of ways.
The specialists I mentioned would immediately know if this was feasible.
In this case a way shallow water recovery almost seems more of a challenge than much deeper water. There you can get the 'big boys' in ... like the 'dockships' and 'servants' and the lifting barges and big lift semisubs.
Before lifting the tail, there was probably enough opportunity to photograph and video the lot. With the main and wing that is much less certain.
I certainly hope that we do not need evidence from the main and wing ... keeping in mind all the cases where investigators were in the end looking for specific components to be able to close the case.