Indonesia Expands Search for Bodies from AirAsia Crash

Local Editor

Recovery teams expanded their search in the Java Sea on Monday as they raced to find bodies and wreckage from AirAsia Flight 8501, which they fear have drifted in rough weather that has hampered operations over the past week.

As the massive relief operation entered its ninth day, officials were hopeful for a break in poor conditions to send divers down to the area where large parts of the crashed Airbus A320-200 have been found.

Only 34 bodies have so far been recovered from the disaster scene. A total of 162 people were onboard when the plane crashed into the sea during on a storm on December 28, en route from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

"Hopefully the weather is good today so that the ROVs [remotely-operated underwater vehicles] and other instruments can be used and our divers can go to the seabed again," search and rescue official S.B. Supriyadi said.

He said he was hopeful they would find "all the parts" of the aircraft Monday and get its exact coordinates underwater.
"Yesterday when our divers went down, the visibility was very bad," Supriyadi added.
Recovery crews nonetheless made some progress on Sunday, retrieving four more bodies and locating a fifth large chunk of the plane.

The discoveries came after Indonesia's meteorological agency said ice likely caused the plane's engine to stall, and as the pilot's daughter urged the public not to blame her father.
Searchers are hunting for the "black box" flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

Supriyadi said the search, which is being assisted by several countries including the United States and Russia, would expand eastwards Monday on suspicions that strong currents have caused parts of the plane to drift.

Several aircraft were making their way from Pangkalan Bun, a town on the island of Borneo with the nearest airstrip to the wreckage, to scour the sea's surface. Speed boats were sweeping the coastline for signs of bodies that may have drifted to shore.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team