SINGAPORE: Rescuers have continued searching for an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed in the Java Sea with 162 people on board. Rescuers are exerting all effort to find the jet’s black boxes. The operation involves over 50 ships, helicopters and aircraft.
At the moment, 37 bodies of dead people have been found. Thirteen bodies have been identified.
The captain of Indonesia’s Navy patrol boat said earlier that he might catch sight of the trailing edge where the black boxes should be.
Head of the Search and Rescue Agency Bambang Soelistyo said the black boxes were still in the jet.
So, the efforts will be joined to search for them, he added.
On December 28, an AirAsia airliner A320-200 disappeared from radar screens about 40 minutes after its departure from Indonesia to Singapore, presumably crashing in the area of Kalimantan (Borneo) Island. The jet was carrying 155 passengers and seven crewmembers.
According to Soelistyo, the largest piece found by the rescuers is 18 meters long and 5.4 meters wide, adding that “the fragments are located at a depth of 30 meters. ‘The rescuers, however, have failed to find the black boxes so far,” he said.
On January 3, the rescuers found two large pieces of the crashed plane’s debris at a depth of 30 meters in the Java Sea.
The objects were lying not far from the settlement of Pangkalan Bun in the central part of Kalimantan Island. Meanwhile, an oil slick was noticed in that area.
