09/01/2015

Recovery of AirAsia QZ8501

Update 15 Jan 2015: Divers search for bodies in AirAsia jet's fuselage
This undated underwater photo taken by a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) shows the wreckage of AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 lying on the sea floor. Photo / AP

Indonesian navy divers plunged into the sea at dawn today to examine a large chunk of the AirAsia jet's fuselage, aiming to bring bodies believed to be trapped inside to the surface.

The day before, a Singaporean navy ship had spotted the 30m-long section of the plane body with a wing attached on the bottom of the Java Sea. Rescuers believe that most of the bodies of the 162 people on board are inside.

So far, only 50 bodies have been recovered from the December 28 crash less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.


Divers to examine AirAsia fuselage in bid to find trapped bodies

At least 15 divers descended to the seabed at a depth of 28 meters (92 feet) Wednesday morning to examine wreckage, calculate its weight and search for bodies inside, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the operation director at the National Search and Rescue Agency.

When corpses are found, the divers will try to put them in individual body bags, which rescuers on ships will then hoist to the surface, he said.

The plane's "black boxes" — the flight data recorder and cockpit flight recorder — were retrieved on Monday and Tuesday. They will be key to learning what caused the plane to crash. Bad weather is a suspected factor.


Both black boxes retrieved from wreckage, sent to Jakarta for analysis
In an update to Indonesia's parliament on the ongoing search and rescue efforts, BASARNAS chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said his agency was forced to extend a seven-day legal timeframe to locate and retrieve bodies of the victims of the plane crash.

Additionally, he noted that Indonesia's armed forces were focused on locating the plane's fuselage while BASARNAS continues to focus on the search for bodies. Soelistyo said it was initially thought that the bulk of the bodies would be found inside the aircraft, but so far, all 48 victims recovered so far were spread out in the sea.

He also said it would be much more challenging for rescue teams to locate bodies if they are all underwater and not at the surface.
Meanwhile, the cockpit voice recorder has arrived on land and has since been flown to Jakarta where investigators will analyse its contents alongside the flight data recorder, which arrived there yesterday.


Searchers retrieve 2nd AirAsia Flight QZ8501 black box; fuselage possibly located

Searchers have now recovered both the black boxes from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 and may have located the fuselage of the plane, an Indonesian official said Tuesday, adding more pieces to help solve the puzzle of what caused the disaster.

The fuselage, or main body, of the plane is believed to have been found northeast of where the tail section was previously by a ship scanning for wreckage, said Supriyadi, an operations coordinator at Indonesia's national search and rescue agency who goes by only one name.

But he said he hasn't seen the full report on the reported discovery yet -- and it hasn't been confirmed so far by the head of the search and rescue agency.


Two AirAsia black boxes found near plane wreckage in Java sea
Officials say it could take upto a month to read the data of the flight recorders, one of which is pictured above. Photograph: Darren Whiteside/Reuters

Indonesian navy divers on Monday retrieved the black box flight data recorder from an AirAsia airliner that crashed two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board, a government official said.
Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on December 28th, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

“At 7:11, we succeeded in lifting the part of the black box known as the flight data recorder,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters at a news conference.

The second black box with the cockpit voice recorder has been located, based on pings from its emergency transmitter, but not yet retrieved, Madjono Siswosuwarno, the main investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, said.


First video of 'black box'
Indonesian divers have retrieved the flight data recorder of crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501, say officials

They believe they have also located the cockpit voice recorder, the second part of the so-called black box, but divers have not yet managed to reach it.

AirAsia flight QZ8501 disappeared in bad weather on 28 December with 162 people on board.

The BBC's Karishma Vaswani said discovery of the 'black box' was a "vital part of the recovery process".


First pictures of the recovered black box

Divers retrieved one black box on Monday and located the other from the AirAsia plane that crashed more than two weeks ago, a key development that will help investigators unravel what caused the aircraft to plummet into the Java Sea.

The cockpit voice recorder was found just hours after officials announced that the flight data recorder had been pulled from beneath a piece of the aircraft's wing and brought to the sea's surface, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, operation coordinator for Indonesia's national search and rescue agency. However, he said that the voice recorder remained lodged beneath heavy wreckage, and that divers were struggling to free it at a depth of 32 meters (105 feet).

Searchers began zeroing in on the sites a day earlier after three Indonesian ships picked up intense pings from the area, but they were unable to see the devices due to strong currents and poor visibility.


After finding FDR, SAR team detects AirAsia's

After recovering AirAsia flight QZ8501’s flight data recorder (FDR) on Monday morning in the Karimata Strait of the Java Sea, the joint search and rescue (SAR) team is now looking for the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

The National Search and Rescue Agency's (Basarnas) operational director, Air Commodore SB Supriyadi, said that the team detected the CVR around 20 kilometers away from where they located the FDR, Antara news agency reported on Monday. Supriyadi said that three military diving teams have been deployed to the area, with each group consisting of between five and seven divers.

The FDR is currently on the naval vessel KRI Banda Aceh in the waters off Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan. It will immediately be handed over to the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) headquarters in Jakarta. Both the FDR and the CVR are black boxes, crucial elements for every air crash investigation.


Divers retrieve 1 of 2 black boxes from crashed AirAsia jet
Indonesian police remove tarpaulin from part of the tail of the AirAsia QZ8501 passenger plane in Kumai Port, near Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan January 12, 2015. Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on December 28, 2014 less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (INDONESIA

Indonesia: Divers retrieved one of the black boxes on Monday from the AirAsia plane that plummeted more than two weeks ago into the Java Sea, a major breakthrough in the slow-moving hunt to recover bodies and wreckage.

The flight data recorder was found under part of the plane’s wing and brought to the surface early in the morning, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, head of the national search and rescue agency.

Divers began zeroing in on the site a day earlier after three Indonesian ships picked up intense pings from the area, but they were unable to see it due to strong currents and poor visibility, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, operation coordinator at the national search and rescue agency


AirAsia jet's flight data recorder retrieved, second black box yet to be pulled out

Sixteen days after AirAsia flight QZ8501 went down into Java Sea, Indonesian Navy divers have successfully retrieved one of the black boxes of the crashed plane, while efforts are on to extricate the other one still stuck in the plane debris.

The retrieval of the plane's flight data recorder comes as a major breakthrough for the multinational search team that often weathered rough seas and zero visibility, as the orange coloured black box is said to hold vital clues about the plane's crash.

After being detected near the area from where pings were heard on Sunday, the flight data recorder was retrieved in the early hours of Monday morning, confirmed Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.  However, the divers are yet to take out the cockpit voice recorder.


AirAsia jet’s tail pulled from sea; no sign of flight recorders
An Indonesian diver and an official examine wreckage from the jet that crashed in the Java Sea

The tail of the crashed AirAsia jet was lifted from the Java Sea on Saturday, but it did not contain the flight recorders that are crucial to helping investigators determine why the jet went down two weeks ago.

The 30-foot-long segment, mostly intact and emblazoned with AirAsia’s red-and-white logo, is the largest piece of the Airbus A320’s fuselage to be retrieved by search crews battling stormy waters off Borneo island. The rear of the aircraft is where the recorders are stored, making the tail one of the most crucial clues to emerge from the search.

Crews used inflatable balloons to hoist the tail 100 feet from the sea floor. A crane then lowered it onto the deck of a ship. The vertical stabilizer was still largely intact, but the attached jagged fuselage was ripped open and revealed a tangle of wires.

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AirAsia Flight 8501 Tail Lifted to Sea Surface in Black Box Hunt
Part of AirAsia flight QZ8501 is lifted onto a Crest Onyx ship as navy divers conduct operations to search for black boxes of the aircraft in the Java sea on Jan. 10

Investigators searching for black boxes in the crashed AirAsia plane lifted the tail portion out of the Java Sea on Saturday, two weeks ago after it went down, killing all 162 people on board. It was not immediately clear if the cockpit voice and flight data recorders were still inside the tail or have been detached when the Airbus A320 plummeted into the sea Dec. 28.

Their recovery is essential to finding out why it crashed. The tail was hoisted from a depth of about 100 feet using inflatable bags that were attached to the rear of the aircraft and a crane to lift it onto a rescue ship. Intermittent underwater ping-like sounds were picked up Friday about a half mile from where the tail was located, but it was unclear if they were coming from the recorders located in the back of the aircraft.

The discovery of the tail on the ocean floor earlier this week was a major breakthrough in the slow-moving search that has been hampered by seasonal rains, choppy seas and blinding silt from river runoff.

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Images of AirAsia Flight 8501 Tail Section Captured
Forty-One on Doomed Plane Belonged to Same Church


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Indonesia lifts AirAsia's jet tail, searching for black box
The tail of the AirAsia QZ8501 passenger plane lies on the deck of the Indonesian Search and Rescue ship Crest Onyx after it was recovered at sea

The black-box flight recorder from the AirAsia jet that crashed into the Java Sea was not in the tail section recovered from the water Saturday.

"The signal from the suspected pinger is located around 1 kilometer southeast from the spot where we located the tail section," S.B. Supriyadi, operations director at the National Search and Rescue Agency, told a press conference at Iskandar Air Force Base, Pangkalan Bun, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) southeast of Singapore, Saturday. "We will try to get a correct fix of the coordinate and send divers afterwards."

Three days ago authorities found the tail, which houses the cockpit-voice recorder and the flight-data recorder, together known as the black box.

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Tail of crashed AirAsia lifted from seabed
According to reports, the plane tail of QZ8501 has been lifted to the surface from the seabed with floating balloons and a crane. The plane tail will be examined to see if the black box recorders are inside

The tail of an AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea was lifted to the surface using floating balloons on Saturday (Jan 10), but apparently without the crucial black box recorders, Indonesian authorities said.

The Airbus jet, carrying 162 people, went missing in stormy weather on Dec 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, and all aboard died.

The tail, which is where the black box data recorders were kept, was found in the seabed 30m (100 feet) below the surface and was finally lifted on to a vessel on Saturday using giant floating balloons and a crane. "We have lifted the tail onto the ship. It's red and white and a big part of the AirAsia logo can be seen," Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir told AFP.


AirAsia plane tail lifted from seabed

Investigators searching for cockpit voice and flight data recorders of crashed flight QZ8501 lift tail from Java Sea

Investigators searching for the black boxes of a crashed AirAsia plane have lifted the tail portion out of the Java Sea, two weeks after it went down, killing all 162 people on board.

It was not immediately clear if the cockpit voice and flight data recorders were still inside the tail or have been detached when the Airbus A320 plummeted into the sea on December 28. Their recovery is essential to finding out why it crashed.

The tail was hoisted on Saturday from a depth of about 30 metres using inflatable bags that were attached to the rear of the aircraft and a crane to lift it onto a rescue ship.


Tail of crashed AirAsia lifted from seabed
Crews float the jet's tail on the surface before recovery. (AFP)

The tail of an AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea has been lifted to the surface using floating balloons, but apparently without the crucial black box recorders, Indonesian authorities say.

The Airbus jet, carrying 162 people, went missing in stormy weather on December 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, and all aboard died.

The tail, which is where the black box data recorders were kept, was found in the seabed 30 metres below the surface and was finally lifted on to a vessel on Saturday using giant floating balloons and a crane.

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AirAsia plane's tail may be lifted to retrieve black boxes; 44 bodies recovered
Indonesia's MGS Geosurvey, left, a helicopter and navy divers take part in a search operation for the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 on the Java Sea, Indonesia, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015

Divers were hoping to zero in on the flight's black boxes Thursday, after search and recovery. Strong currents and blinding silt thwarted divers' attempt on Thursday to find AirAsia Flight 8501's black boxes, which are believed to still be in the recently discovered tail of the crashed plane.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders are crucial to helping determine what caused the jet carrying 162 passengers and crew to vanish on Dec. 28, halfway into a two-hour flight between Surabaya, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Four bodies recovered Thursday raised the total to 44, Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said.


Tail Section of the AirAsia Plane to Be Recovered Today
Indonesian navy divers arrive on their inflatable boats after conducting operations to lift the tail of AirAsia QZ8501 in the Java sea January 8, 2015. Scores of divers plunged into the Java Sea on Thursday to search the wreckage of an AirAsia jet for the black box recorders that could reveal why the plane crashed, Indonesia's search and rescue agency said

Authorities in Indonesia are planning to recover the tail section of the crashed AirAsia plane today.

Bambang Soelistyo, head of National Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia, made the announcement at a press conference on Thursday.

"To speed up, tomorrow we plan to lift the tail that we have found up onto the surface, having the option of using a floating balloon or cranes that we have prepared on the 'Cres Onyx' ship."


 Helicopters load ‘lifting balloons’ in bid to raise jet tail
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 meters

Indonesian search teams loaded lifting balloons on to helicopters on Friday ahead of an operation to raise the tail section of an AirAsia jet off the sea bed, raising hopes the black boxes can be found to reveal the cause of the disaster.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens on Dec. 28 less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.
There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.

The Airbus A320-200 carries the black box cockpit voice and flight data recorders near the tail section. Officials have warned, however, that they could have become separated from the tail.


AirAsia QZ8501: Black Box Signals Detected

Signals from the black box of the ill-fated AirAsia QZ8501 flight were detected by Indonesian search and rescue teams on Friday, in one of the most significant developments that will aid in understanding what caused the plane to crash.

Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, confirmed the news on Friday. While the tail of the plane, which holds the voice recorder, had been located in the sea bed several days ago, divers faced a challenge of retrieving the black box in the rough weather.

A plane's black box can emit signals only up to 30 days before the batteries die out.


Eerie video shows divers searching through the wreckage of the doomed jet
New footage has emerged showing Indonesian military divers investigating the tail of AirAsia flight 8501
The divers hope to locate the flight data recorder and retrieving more bodies of the crash's victims
Footage released by Indonesian authorities shows divers surrounding the submerged wreck of the tail
Divers are shown shining torches into the badly damaged hull, 30 meters under the waters of the Java Sea

New footage has emerged showing Indonesian military divers investigating the submerged tail of doomed AirAsia flight 8501.

The video, released by Indonesian authorities, shows divers surrounding the submerged wreck, shining torches into the badly damaged hull, 30 metres under the surface of the Java Sea.

Having located the tail of the plane on Thursday the search teams are now pressing ahead with their efforts to find the black box and retrieve bodies from the wreckage.


Pings detected in search for AirAsia jet's black box investigator

Indonesia search and rescue teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet have detected pings in their efforts to find the black box recorders, Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, told Reuters on Friday.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens on Dec. 28 less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.

Indonesian search teams loaded lifting balloons on to helicopters on Friday ahead of an operation to raise the tail section of the jet, although Sayogo said it appeared that the black box was no longer in the tail and divers were confirming its position


First pictures of tragic AirAsia flight underwater emerge
In this undated underwater photo released by Indonesia's National Search And Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, the part of the wreckage that BASARNAS identified as of the ill-fated AirAsia Flight 8501, is seen in the waters of the Java Sea, Indonesia. (AP Photo/BASARNAS)

It was the first confirmed sighting of any major wreckage 11 days after Flight 8501 disappeared with 162 people on board.

Powerful currents and murky water continue to hinder the operation, but searchers managed to get a photograph of the debris after it was detected by an Indonesian survey ship, National Search and Rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters.

The find is particularly important because the all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, are located in the aircraft's tail. Smaller pieces of the plane, such as seats and an emergency door, had previously been collected from the surface.


AirAsia plane crash: First pictures of wreckage
One released image appears to show an upside down "A'' painted on a piece of metal

The first images of the wreckage from AirAsia flight 8501, discovered in the Java Sea, have been released by the Indonesian government.

Divers and an unmanned underwater vehicle located the missing plane's tail section on Wednesday, the first confirmed sighting of any major wreckage from the flight 11 days after it disappeared with 162 people on board. The bodies of 40 people who died in the crash have been found since then.

Finding the wreckage has raised hopes that the flight's "black box" - a recording of what was going on during the flight - may be located before it stops emitting signals, 20 days after the crash. The "black box" is central to help authorities work out what went wrong with what seemed like a routine flight.



Full Coverage:
CNN: AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disaster: What happens next?
USA TODAY: Divers search AirAsia fuselage found in Java Sea

News24: Divers locate 'key' AirAsia cockpit voice recorder
Anderson Independent: Divers retrieve 1 of 2 black boxes from crashed AirAsia
prince george: AirAsia plane's tail may be lifted to find black boxes as divers
Yahoo!: Pings detected in hunt for AirAsia black boxes: Indonesian official
Airwise: Pings Detected In Search For AirAsia Flight Recorders
Alaska Dispatc: AirAsia Flight 8501 search: Tail lifting from Java sea
Channel News Asia: QZ8501: Official says black boxes may not be in tail section
BBC News: AirAsia QZ8501: 'Divers in water trying to raise plane'
Irish Independent: 'Pings' detected in search for missing plane's black boxes
Alaska Dispatch: Pings Detected From AirAsia Plane's Black Boxes
New York Times: Signals Are Detected From AirAsia Jet's Black Boxes
Deseret News: AirAsia plane's tail may be lifted to retrieve 44 bodies recovered
Economic Times: Signals heard in Java Sea, but unclear if from AirAsia jet
click to houston: Divers preparing to investigate possible AirAsia pings
Straits Times: AirAsia QZ8501: Indonesia suspends 61 flights from 5 airlines
Channel News Asia: Official says black boxes may not be in tail section
Star Online: AirAsia QZ8501: Indonesia suspends 61 flights from five airlines
ANTARA: Indonesia SAR divers to find ping location of AirAsia8501
Star Online:AirAsia QZ8501: SAR team's sonar detects black boxes
Wall Street Journal: AirAsia Flight 8501: Search Teams Aim to Raise Tail Section
Firstpost: AirAsia QZ8501: A look at the recovery efforts nearly 2 weeks after crash
IBNLive: AirAsia jet's black box pings detected, say Indonesia search teams
Irish Times: AirAsia: Pings detected in search for black box
The Independent: AirAsia crash: 'Pings' detected in search for plane's black boxes

CNN: Divers to investigate pings thought to be from AirAsia QZ8501's black boxes
Economic Times: Crashed AirAsia Flight 8501's black box pings detected: Official
Firstpost: Pings detected in hunt for crashed AirAsia flight's black boxes: Indonesia
Sydney Morning Herald: AirAsia crash: 'ping' signals from black box detected
Financial Express: Pings of crashed AirAsia QZ8501 black box detected
Bangkok Post: AirAsia tail to be lifted; pings heard
The Times: Pings detected in hunt for AirAsia black boxes
Times of India: AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Pings detected in search for jet's black box
NEWS.com.au: Pings from AirAsia flight detected
TIME: Signals Have Been Detected From the AirAsia Jet's Data Recorders
The Australian: AirAsia black box pings detected
India Today: Indonesia says pings detected in search for AirAsia jet's black box
Moneycontrol: Pings detected in AirAsia jet black box hunt: Investigator
Mashable: AirAsia 8501's black box pings may have been detected, authorities say
USA TODAY: Report: Pings detected in AirAsia search
South China Morning Post: Pings detected in search for AirAsia jet's black box
Jakarta Post: Airline promises to pay families compensation
Sin Chew Jit Poh: Discovery of tail may unravel truth being AirAsia tragedy
Channel News Asia: Crashed AirAsia flight's black box pings detected
RT: Pings detected during search for AirAsia black box
RTE.ie: Pings detected in AirAsia search
New York Times: Indonesia: Teams Detect Pings at AirAsia Flight 8501 Site

GMA News: Indonesia says pings detected in search for AirAsia jet's black box
NBCNews: 'Pings' Detected From Crashed AirAsia Jet: Investigator
BBC News: AirAsia QZ8501: 'Pings' detected in plane search
The Guardian: AirAsia plane crash: pings detected in search for black box
Huffington Post: AirAsia Black Box Pings Detected, Investigator Says
Straits Times: AirAsia flight QZ8501: Indonesia investigator says pings detected
Jakarta Post: Jokowi orders AirAsia to pay compensation
The Hindu: Divers will lift AirAsia plane's tail from Java sea
Daily Mail: Inside the twisted fuselage of AirAsia flight QZ8501: Eerie video shows
Express.co: Pings detected in search for AirAsia black box
National Business Review: Indonesia continues crackdown on airline operations
Reuters India: Indonesia helicopters load "lifting balloons" in bid to raise AirAsia jet tail
Irish Examiner: Strong winds thwart bids to locate jet's black boxes
Australian Aviation: QZ8501 search focuses on black box recovery after tail located
Straits Times: AirAsia QZ8501: Helicopters load 'lifting balloons' in bid to raise jet tail
Free Malaysia: Helicopters load 'lifting balloons' in bid to raise jet tail
Malaysian Insider: Indonesian helicopters load 'lifting balloons' in bid to raise jet tail
Malay Mail: Flight QZ8501 search teams load 'lifting balloons' to raise jet tail
Channel News Asia: LIVE BLOG: AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash, Day 13
ecns: Rescuers to lift tail, retrieve more bodies in crashed AirAsia jet
CRIENGLISH: Tail Section of the AirAsia Plane to Be Recovered Today
Hiru News: Crashed jet's tail to be raised today
BBC News: Indonesia's government mulls air fare price rise
Food World News: Search And Rescue Team Finally Discovers Tail Of Flight 8501
Daily Times: Indonesia cracks down on cheap fares to boost airline safety
micebtn: Indonesia bans ultra cheap tickets, cuts AirAsia rights
Echonetdaily: Divers struggle to reach AirAsia wreckage
TODAYonline: TODAY's brief, Fri, Jan 9
The Nation: Indonesian divers struggle to reach AirAsia wreckage
DVIDS: US Navy divers use advance equipment in search for AirAsia QZ8501

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