AirAsia Bodies Arrivals is Trending

massive hunt for the 162 victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 resumed in the Java Sea on Wednesday, with seven bodies, including a flight attendant identified by her trademark red uniform, recovered. But wind, strong currents and high surf hampered recovery efforts as distraught family members anxiously waited to identify their loved ones.

The jet vanished from radar in bad weather Sunday morning. After more than two days of searching, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency confirmed Tuesday that debris and bodies from the aircraft was found in the Karimata Strait, off the coast of Borneo. The first proof of the jet's fate emerged Tuesday in an area not far from where it dropped off radar screens.

 

Relatives react to the news about the fate of the plane

Two bodies of the seven so far recovered from the crashed AirAsia flight have arrived at the military airport of Surabaya on Wednesday afternoon. About 4pm local time, two coffins containing bodies from the crashed AirAsia QZ8501 arrived in the cargo hold of an Indonesian airforce jet to the military airport at Surabaya.

The airliner's disappearance halfway through a two-hour flight between Surabaya, Indonesia, and Singapore triggered an international search for the aircraft involving dozens of planes, ships and helicopters. It is still unclear what brought the plane down. The plane needs to be located and its cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, recovered before officials can start determining what caused the crash.

“The weather is clear today. We’re making an all-out effort to search for bodies and locate the fuselage,” search and rescue official Sunarbowo Sandi told AFP from Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.

He said foreign experts would join Indonesian transport safety investigators in the search to locate the wreckage and retrieve the black boxes, which are key to determining the cause of the crash.

“Ten investigators from the national transport safety committee (KNKT) along with two French and two Singapore investigators will join the search today to locate the fuselage,” he said.

“We hope that an underwater beacon will be able to detect the weak signal transmitted by the ELT (emergency locator transmitter),” he added.

The transmitter sends a signal that helps rescuers to find a plane in the event of an accident.

The plane was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

A source close to the probe into what happened said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320's limits.

Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Many family members have remained at the Surabaya airport since getting word that the plane disappeared. Some, like 15-year-old Chiara Natasha, are now alone.

Her entire family was coming to visit her in Singapore for New Year's. She had just moved there in November to study at a Methodist girls' school on a government scholarship. Her parents and two brothers had promised to join her to celebrate the holiday and help her settle into dormitory life.

But instead of greeting her relatives at the airport, she returned home Sunday to Surabaya to seek any word about the flight's fate, praying that they had somehow survived.