Rough seas foil bid to reach jet

High waves and strong currents in the Java Sea again prevented Indonesian navy divers from accessing the fuselage and what is believed to be the cockpit of the AirAsia plane that crashed three weeks ago, officials said.

A team of 15 navy divers tried to get to the wreckage to examine it and calculate its weight, but failed to reach it due to the unfavorable conditions, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, director of operations for Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Indonesian survey ships have located at least nine large objects, including the jet’s fuselage, what is believed to be the cockpit and an engine, Supriyadi said. The fuselage is sitting on the seabed at a depth of 28 meters.

The 30m-long fuselage and an attached wing were sighted on Wednesday. Divers tried to reach the wreckage on Thursday and Friday, but were turned back because of the rough sea conditions.

Authorities believe many of the bodies are still inside the fuselage. There were 162 people aboard flight 8501 when it crashed into the sea on December 28 en route from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore. Only 51 bodies have so far been recovered.

The head of the search and rescue agency, Henry Bambang Soelistyo, said on Friday that the fuselage would have to be lifted because of the divers’ inability to reach it. This will be done by either using floating balloons or cranes from tugboats.

But divers still need to reach the wreckage area. The wreckage that appears to be the cockpit was located by sonar imagery about 500m from the fuselage.

“What we have so far is only a silhouette of the wreckage,” Supriyadi said.

“We need to deploy our divers to identify whether it’s the jet’s cockpit or something else.”

Divers have been told to retrieve the bodies of the pilot and the co-pilot if they are able to find them in the cockpit, he said.

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