ABOARD THE KRI BANDA ACEH WARSHIP: Elite Indonesian military divers battled powerful currents yesterday to reach the submerged tail of crashed AirAsia Flight 8501, in hopes of finding its crucial black box data recorders.
The plane crashed on December 28 during stormy weather as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, claiming the lives of all 162 people on board.
Bad weather and huge waves have plagued multinational efforts to find the wreckage of the plane in the Java Sea, as well as all of the bodies and the black boxes that should contain the pilots’ last words. The biggest breakthrough came on Wednesday with the discovery of the tail, which is where the black boxes are kept, buried into the seabed 100 feet underwater.
However powerful currents stymied efforts yesterday by divers from the Indonesian Marines’ elite diving unit to penetrate into the tail, search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said. “Today’s search was really hampered by strong currents,” Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta after a day of repeated but fruitless probes to the tail.
Divers travelled by rubber boat from the KRI Banda Aceh warship that was being stationed close to the site of tail wreckage. Soelistyo said, if weather allowed, retrieval experts would try to lift the tail off the seabed today, which would give divers access into the wreckage and search for the black boxes.
He said the lifting could be done with special airbags or a crane, all of which would be brought to the Banda Aceh and another naval ship in the area today. Soelistyo said the other top priority was the search for bodies, with just 43 found so far. Many of the others are believed to be inside the wreckage of the plane’s main cabin, which has not been found. The search — involving US, Russian, Chinese and other foreign military assets — is being conducted from Pangkalan Bun, a town on the island of Borneo which has the closest airstrip to the crash site.
The Indonesian meteorological agency has said weather was the “triggering factor” of the crash, with ice likely damaging the engines of the Airbus A320-200. But a clearer explanation is not possible without the black boxes.
AFP
