Weather continues to hinder search for Flight 8501
A fifth major part of the airliner has been recovered along with 34 bodies
Bad weather and strong currents have continued to prevent searchers from making contact with the wreckage of Air Asia Indonesia Flight 8501, which crashed off the coast of Borneo on December 28.
A week after the Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea with 162 people aboard, Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency says sonar imaging has revealed a fifth large object, measuring nearly 10m in length.
Earlier, the agency said it had found four main parts of the jetliner, with the largest measuring about 18m, on the sea floor. Divers haven’t made contact with that wreckage.
Bambang Soelistyo, the agency’s head, says a remotely operated vehicle could not be deployed in the search area because currents are moving faster than the machine allows.
A total of 34 bodies had been recovered and all have been sent to Surabaya, where the flight originated. Operations slowed overall, with the weather allowing divers to enter the water only briefly.
“If we look at the forecast for tomorrow [Monday], we’re hopeful,” Mr Soelistyo said, adding that his priority is to send divers to the areas of wreckage, while five ships will search for the plane’s “black box” data recorders.
Those vessels, equipped with sound-detection equipment, are able to scan the search area despite adverse weather conditions. It is the middle of monsoon season in the region, and swells in the search area have reached as high as 5m in recent days.
The search area for bodies and debris h now encompasses a total area of 20,700 nautical miles. The heart of the search area is about 160km southwest of Pangkalan Bun, where recovery operations have their headquarters.
Nevil Gibson
Mon, 05 Jan 2015
Mon, 05 Jan 2015
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Weather continues to hinder search for Flight 8501
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