Update | AirAsia black boxes 'likely detached and buried on seabed' as searchers recover plane's tail
The downed AirAsia plane’s tail – the biggest piece of wreckage found so far from flight QZ8501 – has been lifted out of the water, but did not contain the black boxes crucial to solving why the plane crashed.
The flight data and cockpit voice recorders were likely dislodged from the tail after the crash, said SB Supriyadi, an Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency director.
Supriyadi said “faint pings” were detected about 1.6 kilometre southeast of the tail’s last location. The devices are designed to emit signals every second continuously for 30 days.
Nevertheless, authorities double-checked whether the black boxes might somehow still be attached to the rear section of the aircraft, where commercial airliners typically store them.
“It’s currently being brought close to a ship and then it will be towed [to shore],” Supriyadi said from Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort on Borneo. “And then they want to search for the black box.”
He said the towing could take up to 15 hours amid the strong winds, currents and high waves that have hampered the entire search effort.
The tail of the Airbus A320-200 was raised with the help of floating balloons, or air bags, and a crane on Saturday. Sailors aboard the Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh cheered as it was being pulled out.
Torn but still bearing AirAsia’s distinctive red and white logo, the tail was found upturned on the seabed at a depth of about 30 metres, and about 30 kilometres from where the plane disappeared off radar.
Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control after failing to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather on December 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s Surabaya city to Singapore.
There were no survivors among the 162 passengers and crew. The pilots did not issue a distress signal.
If the recorders had become separated from the tail, they could be covered in mud, making the search in the murky water that much more difficult, Supriyadi said.
“The pings can only be detected within a radius of 500 metres so it can be a large area to cover,” he said.
If and when the recorders are found and taken to the Indonesian capital Jakarta for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said.
The information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged.
WATCH: What the recovery operation is like for Indonesian authorities hunting AirAsia wreckage
Divers from an elite Indonesian Marines unit were sent to look into the pings.
“They are searching within a radius of 500 metres from where the pings are emitted. The challenge is that these sounds are very faint. If a ship passes by, the sounds will be drowned out. So we really need calm waters,” Supriyadi said.
Meanwhile, search efforts also involving foreign naval ships continued for other plane parts in the relatively shallow waters of the Java Sea, as well as for the bodies of the passengers and crew.
Just 48 bodies have been found so far, including two still strapped to their seats.
All but seven of those on board were Indonesian.
The non-Indonesians were three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a Frenchman – co-pilot Remi Plesel.
While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor.
The Indonesian captain, a former Air Force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse
