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AirAsia plane crash: pings detected in search for black box AirAsia plane crash: pings detected in search for black box
(about 2 hours later)
Indonesian search and rescue teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet detected pings in their efforts to find the black box recorders on Friday, 12 days after the plane went missing with 162 people on board, an official said. Indonesian search and rescue teams have likely detected signals from the black box of AirAsia flight QZ8501, raising hopes that investigators will soon obtain key information on why the plane went down.
Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens on 28 December, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors. The pings were detected on Friday morning, 12 days after the plane went missing over the Java Sea while carrying 162 people from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore.
The Airbus A320-200 carries the black box cockpit voice and flight data recorders near the tail section. Officials had warned, however, that they could have become separated from the tail. On Wednesday, an unmanned underwater vehicle located the plane’s tail about 30m underwater off the coast of Borneo, upside down and partially embedded in the sea bed. While the black box and flight recorders were installed in the plane’s tail section, officials warned that they may have come undone, suggesting that they may be buried in the mud.
Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, said it appeared that the black box was no longer in the tail. “We received an update from the field that the pinger locator already detected pings,” Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, told reporters. “We have our fingers crossed it is the black box. Divers need to confirm. Unfortunately it seems it’s off from the tail. But the divers need to confirm the position.”
“We received an update from the field that the pinger locator already detected pings,” he told reporters. Searchers have pulled 46 bodies of the plane’s passenger and crew from the water, as well as a scattering of debris. No survivors have been found.
“We have our fingers crossed it is the black box. Divers need to confirm. Unfortunately it seems it’s off from the tail. But the divers need to confirm the position.” Experts say that the crash was at least partially caused by bad weather. Yet the pilot did not issue a distress call, and the the circumstances of the flight’s final moments remain unclear.
The tail 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 around 30 metres. Indonesian armed forces commander general Moeldoko told reporters on Thursday that signals from the plane’s black box had been found, but later lost again. Divers searching for the black box on Thursday were thwarted by strong currents and low visibility.
Indonesian search teams loaded lifting balloons on to helicopters on Friday ahead of an operation to raise the tail. Black boxes typically emit signals for about a month after a crash before running out of batteries.
Relatives of the victims have urged authorities to make finding the remains of their loved ones the priority.
Forty-six bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have hampered efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.
Indonesia AirAsia, 49% owned by the Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since the crash.Indonesia AirAsia, 49% owned by the Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier’s Surabaya-Singapore licence, saying it only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.The transport ministry has suspended the carrier’s Surabaya-Singapore licence, saying it only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.
While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal tropical storms common in the area were likely to be a factor.