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.
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