Indonesian search team raises tail of crashed AirAsia plane

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian search and rescue teams raised yesterday the tail of an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed nearly two weeks ago with the loss of all 162 people on board, but have yet to locate the black box flight recorders.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather on Dec. 28, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia to Singapore. There were no survivors.

Forty-eight bodies, including at least two strapped to their seats, have been found in the Java Sea off Borneo.

Search and rescue teams detected pings they believed were from the flight recorders on Friday and two teams of divers resumed the hunt soon after dawn yesterday.

The tail of the Airbus A320-200 was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane’s last known location at a depth of about 30 metres (100 feet).

Teams of divers working in rubber dinghies battled the swell to attach inflatable balloons to the tail section, which was later towed onto a rescue vessel nearby. But once the tail section was visible, it quickly became apparent that the flight recorders were still underwater.

“We can confirm the black box is not in the tail,” Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort on Borneo.

The aircraft carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders – or black boxes – near its tail.

However, officials had said earlier it looked as if the recorders, which will be vital to the investigation into why the airliner crashed, had become separated during the disaster.