Bodies of the victims are
being flown back to Surabaya after being recovered from the Java Sea
Bad weather was the biggest
factor in the crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501, the Indonesian weather agency
believes.
The BMKG agency said initial
analysis suggested icy conditions in the air had caused the engine to stall.
The Airbus A320 vanished
with 162 people aboard en route from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore last
Sunday.
The discovery of four large
objects believed to be plane debris has raised hopes of finding the fuselage,
where most bodies are believed to be trapped.
Just 30 bodies had been recovered
from the Java Sea as of Saturday morning.
The plane's black boxes, its
flight data and cockpit voice recorders, have yet to be located.
BMKG found conditions at the
time of the plane's disappearance suggested it had probably flown into a storm
and experienced extremely icy conditions.
"From our data it looks
like the last location of the plane had very bad weather and it was the biggest
factor behind the crash," said Edvin Aldrian, head of research at BMKG.
"These icy conditions
can stall the engines of the plane and freeze and damage the planes
machinery," he added.
Officials have said the
plane was travelling at 32,000ft when the pilot's last communication was a
request to climb to 38,000ft to avoid bad weather.
Meiji Thejakusuma is one of
the few victims to have been positively identified
The mother of victim Hendra
Gunawan Syawal prayed by her son's coffin in Surabaya
The search teams have
recovered 30 bodies from the Java Sea despite tough weather conditions
Victims in body bags were
hoisted aboard a warship
Russian search teams arrived
aboard a Beriev Be-200 amphibious aircraft
Hampered search
Earlier, search and rescue
agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said four large objects as well as oil slicks
had been detected by sonar from an Indonesian navy ship.
The biggest of the objects
was 18m (59ft) long, he said, and he believed they were parts of the plane.
According to the Associated
Press news agency, he also gave the width of the largest object found, saying
it was 5.4m. Another part was said to be 10m long.
Mr Soelistyo said an ROV
(remotely operated underwater vehicle) was being lowered into the water to get
an actual picture of the objects, which were at a depth of 30m.
He warned the height of
waves was hampering the search effort at sea. The waves were four to five
metres high, he said.
Captain John Noble, a marine
salvage consultant, told the BBC that the fact the crashed jet appeared to be
in about 30m would help search teams.
"It is very dive-able,"
he told the News Channel. "It is easy to get equipment down there. There
are problems with currents and visibility but compared to the [missing Malaysia
Airlines Flight] MH-370, we are talking about just a little depth."
AirAsia 8501 flight path and
search area
A flotilla of ships,
including two from the US navy, are converging on the site where the objects
were located and preparing to put divers into the water.
A Russian search team,
including 22 divers and a remotely operated submersible vessel, is expected to
join the hunt for the black boxes after arriving in Pangkalan Bun on Saturday.
"Among the members of
our team, there are 22 deep water divers," said a spokesman for the
Russian embassy in Jakarta, Alexander Shilin. "All of them are brilliant experts.
Maybe the best in the world."
No permit to fly
It has emerged that AirAsia
did not have official permission to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on the day
of the crash but was licensed on four other days of the week.
The Indonesian authorities
have suspended the company's flights on this route with immediate effect
pending an investigation. AirAsia said it would "fully co-operate"
with the inquiry.
There were 137 adult
passengers, 17 children and one infant, along with two pilots and five crew, on
the plane - the majority Indonesian.
Four people have been
identified so far: Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, Grayson Herbert Linaksita, Kevin
Alexander Soetjipto and Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi. Two other bodies are said to
have been identified but details have not yet been released.
AirAsia previously had an
excellent safety record, with no fatal accidents involving its aircraft.
Black box flight recorder
source : BBC News.
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