HUNT FOR MISSING FUSELAGE OF AIRASIA FLIGHT INTENSIFIED By Fardah

  Jakarta, Jan 6, 2015 (Antara) -- Authorities are intensifying efforts to track down the fuselage and black box of AirAsia flight QZ8501 before the plane's "pinger" exhausts after some 30 days.  
    On the tenth day of the search, a joint team led by the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) deployed all forces and equipment needed for the mission, Basarnas Chief Vice Marshal F. Henry Bambang Soelistyo said in a press conference on January 6.

         At 6.05 a. m. local time on Tuesday (January 6), a number of divers began the search under the sea to look for the plane's fuselage, where more than 100 bodies are believed to be trapped.

         "Our priority is to dive into the search area we predicted is the location of the fuselage of the aircraft," Soelistyo stated recently.  

    AirAsia flight QZ8501 went missing on December 28 en route from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore.

         It was carrying 162 people on board, including 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, a Briton, a Singaporean, a French, and a Malaysian.

         The ill-fated plane is believed to have crashed in the Java Sea near Karimata Strait, some 95 nautical miles from Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.

         Since the day of its disappearance, Indonesia launched a massive search and rescue operation, which was joined in by several foreign countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the U. S., Japan, China, South Korea, India, and Russia.

         A pinger locator has been deployed into the sea to send a signal to the missing AirAsia fight's black box, Deputy Head of the Research and Application of Technology Agency (BPPT) Ridwan Djamaluddin stated on January 4.

         The black box's instrument is expected to respond to the call signal so its location can be identified," Djamaluddin explained.

         On Saturday, the BPPT detected a metal object, but it turned out that it was not the AirAsia plane's fuselage.

         Till January 6, 37 bodies were recovered, of which 13 were identified and returned to their families.

         Moreover, the Basarnas head believes that many bodies of victims of the AirAsia crash are trapped in the plane's fuselage as less progress is being made in recovering more bodies.

         "The number of bodies being recovered has been falling by the day. If the predicted location of the flight's fuselage turns out to be correct, I believe we will find the bodies of our brothers still in the plane's fuselage in the seabed. If that is, indeed, the case, I will make an all-out effort to find it," Soelistyo affirmed.

         The debris and remains of passengers of the ill-fated AirAsia flight QZ8501 were mostly found in the priority search area near Kumai Bay, he noted, adding that the search for the plane's fuselage will be concentrated in the area. 
    "The priority area for the search for the remains of the plane will be about 1,575 nautical square miles of waters, although we will look in other areas, as well," Soelistyo affirmed earlier.

         The agency will expand the search area to the east, around Karimata Strait in Central Kalimantan, based on the Search and Rescue Mapping Application, he explained.

         In addition, the SAR team had planned to undertake diving operations on the morning of January 4, but bad weather had hindered their plans.

         Soelistyo pointed out that underwater currents could reach 3 to 5 knots with zero visibility range due to silt rising from the bottom of the sea.

         While the search for the fuselage is being carried out by the Basarnas-led operations, the task of tracking down the black box is being handled by the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT).

         Some 60 ships and 17 aircraft are deployed for the search operations. In conducting its mission, the KNKT deployed the Kaladaya vessel, he stated, adding that 59 teams of divers were involved in the efforts.

         The mission also involves the Baruna Jaya research vessel, as well as the MV Geo Survey vessel and the KN Jadayat. These are equipped with underwater detection facilities, with scanning sonar and pinger locators, he revealed.

         According to Nurcahyo Utomo, a KNKT investigator, the basic empty weight of AirAsia flight QZ8501 would be 70 tons, whereas the recovered debris, so far, weighs only some hundred kilograms.

         The joint team has found some debris, including the right rear launcher, the upper trunk of seat number 6, bottles for the launcher, panel flakes, a flight attendant's seat, and a right front launcher, he stated here on Monday.

         Furthermore, the latest disappearance and subsequent crash of the AirAsia aircraft has prompted aviation experts to renew their call to change the process of tracking commercial jetliners.

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