AirAsia plane fuselage that could contain bodies and black boxes suspected to be found

Indonesian search teams found the tail section of the ill-fated AirAsia flight

Indonesian search teams believe they have discovered the fuselage, or main body, of the AirAsia plane that crashed in the Java Sea two weeks ago with hopes that the black box recorders would also be found.

Divers are hoping that calmer sea conditions tomorrow will allow them to retrieve the black box recorders that contain flight data after they were initially believed to have been located on the tail that was pulled out of the sea yesterday.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on 28 December, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. None of the 162 people on board the aircraft survived and only 48 dead bodies have been retrieved so far.

Searchers have also been hearing pings and the battery that emits them is expected to last 17 more days.

Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, said today that a sonar scan had revealed an object measuring 10 metres by four metres by 2.5 metres on the sea floor. The body of the plane could contain the victims of the crash.

“They suspect it is the body of the plane. There is a big possibility that the black box is near the body of the plane,” Supriyadi told Reuters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort off the coast of Borneo.

The tail of the crashed AirAsia plane being dragged out of the sea

“If it is the body of the plane then we will first evacuate the victims. Secondly we will search for the black box.”

Strong winds, currents and high waves have been hampering efforts to reach other large pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.

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 are not badly damaged.

The aircraft carries cockpit voice and flight data recorders - or black boxes - near its tail but once the wreckage was visible, it quickly became apparent that the flight recorders were still underwater.

While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor.

Source: The Independent