Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency confirmed
Tuesday that debris and bodies found in waters near the island of Borneo was
from AirAsia Flight 8501. Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s
search-and-rescue efforts, told reporters earlier that a shadow underwater near
where the debris was found looked like an aircraft. He said 21 divers would be deployed
to the area.
At least six bodies from the site have been recovered, said
Adm. Sigit Setiyanta, commander of the Naval Air Center. After a news
conference, Mr. Soelistyo said the process to recover bodies from the Karimata
Strait has been hampered by large waves. The wreckage was found about 100
nautical miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun in Borneo.
The AirAsia jet lost contact with air-traffic
controllers en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia on Sunday
morning, carrying 162 passengers and crew. Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia’s
acting director general for civil aviation, said three clusters of scattered
debris were red and white, the colors of the AirAsia plane.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Indonesia would launch
Wednesday morning a massive operation to locate passenger bodies and AirAsia
plane parts. He plans to fly to the area and will stop in Surabaya. Authorities
operating in waters around debris believed to be from the AirAsia flight QZ5801
jetliner face a far simpler task than those searching for missing Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370, according to experts. The WSJ's Ramy Inocencio speaks to
marine geologist Robin Beaman about the ocean in the recovery area.
AirAsia’s chief executive, Tony Fernandes , said
it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. He apologized
“profusely” for the accident and has met with staff and families, adding that
his company wouldn’t run from obligations such as compensation to victims’
families. More than 20 aircraft have joined in the ramped-up search, including
16 from Indonesia, two from Singapore, two from Australia and one from
Malaysia, said Indonesian Air Vice Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi.
Previously, search-and-rescue officials said the plane was
most likely “at the bottom of the sea” and that inclement weather likely
played a role in the Airbus A320’s disappearance. Earlier Tuesday,
Indonesia AirAsia said it would fly passengers’ family members to an area of
the ocean where investigators suspect the plane might have crashed.
One of the most pressing questions for searchers and
investigators had been why signals from multiple emergency beacons on the
aircraft weren’t detected. The beacons, known as emergency locator
transmitters, or ELTs, are designed to emit signals to satellites upon crashing
and last about 30 days.
The plane was flying at 32,000 feet over the Java Sea when
it fell off the radar. Storm clouds at the time rose to a height of 44,000
feet, higher than commercial airliners in the region fly, Indonesia’s weather
agency said. Indonesia’s air-traffic-control operator said that of all the
flights in the region Sunday morning, only the AirAsia flight requested a new
flight path to avoid the inclement weather. The AirAsia jet was the
lowest-flying plane in the region at the time of its disappearance, according
to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking service.
At one point, pilots of the flight received permission from
Indonesia’s Air Traffic Control to alter their course by 7 miles to the left to
avoid storm clouds. They also requested permission to climb to 38,000 feet,
which air traffic control later said it believed was for the common reason of
saving fuel. Air traffic control decided instead to allow the plane to ascend to
34,000 feet in the relatively crowded skies, but by the time it returned with
that message, they couldn’t establish radio contact with the plane. Shortly
after, it vanished from radar.
The AirAsia plane’s Indonesian captain was Iriyanto, a
former fighter pilot who had accumulated more than 20,000 flying hours, of
which more than 6,100 were with Indonesia AirAsia on Airbus A320 jets, the
airline said in a statement. The co-pilot was a French national, Rémi-Emmanuel
Plesel, who had 2,247 flying hours with the airline.
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