Divers resume search for QZ8501 black boxes

By: Unknown on 5:07 PM

An Indonesian rescue helicopter flying during operations conducted by Indonesian navy divers to lift the tail of AirAsia flight QZ8501 in the Java Sea yesterday. Indonesia search and rescue teams hunting for the wreck of the AirAsia passenger jet detected pings in their efforts to find the black box flight recorders. – Reuters pic, January 10, 2015.Indonesian divers resumed their search today for the black box flight recorders and passengers and crew of an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed into the sea nearly two weeks ago.Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501, with 162 people on board, lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather on December 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia to Singapore. There were no survivors.
Forty-eight bodies, including at least two strapped to their seats, have been found in the Java Sea off Borneo, and the tail of the Airbus A320-200 has been located in shallow water.But strong winds and currents and high waves have hampered efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor and to find the rest of the victims.Search and rescue teams detected pings they believed were from the flight recorders yesterday and two teams of divers resumed the hunt soon after dawn today."One team is for the tail and a separate team is sweeping the seabed for the black box," Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort on Borneo."We are still looking for the main body of the plane where most of the victims could be trapped."The tail was found on Wednesday, upturned on the seabed about 30km from the plane's last known location at a depth of about 30m.The aircraft carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders near its tail, however, officials have said it looked increasingly likely that they had become separated during the disaster.The recorders will be vital to the investigation into why the airliner crashed.'Large area’Supriyadi said the divers would try to home in on the pings but the search area was extensive and visibility in the water, churned up by rainy season weather, was poor."The black box could be covered in mud. The pings can only be detected within a radius of 500m so it can be a large area to cover," he said.If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices were not badly damaged.While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor. – Reuters, January 10, 2015.