Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Missing AirAsia plane: Bodies recovered by Indonesian military in seas off Borneo island, crash site of airliner

Missing AirAsia plane: Bodies recovered by Indonesian military in seas off Borneo island, crash site of airliner

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AirAsia officials confirmed that wreckage spotted six miles from the last reported position of the passenger jet is from missing AirAsia Flight 8501. An Indonesian helicopter was dispatched to pick up at least 10 pieces of debris in the Java Sea to verify if it could be from missing flight. Three bodies have been recovered, swollen but intact, official said.

 
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
 
Published: Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 12:12 AM
Updated: Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 12:46 PM
  • A
    •  
  • A
    •  
  • A
1K
89
25
SHARE THIS URL
SALESOUT NARCH EUO 3TP IDNOUT
A search team member descends as a body floats off the coast of Kalimantan, Indonesia.
PreviousNext
  • SALESOUT NARCH EUO 3TP IDNOUT
    •  
  • This aerial view taken from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea shows floating debris spotted in the same area as other items being investigated by Indonesian authorities as possible objects from missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 on December 30, 2014. Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted during a aerial search on December 30 for the missing AirAsia plane, according to information from the flight on which AFP was aboard.
    •  
  • This aerial view taken from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea shows floating debris spotted in the same area as other items being investigated by Indonesian authorities as possible objects from missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 on December 30, 2014. Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted during a aerial search on December 30 for the missing AirAsia plane, according to information from the flight on which AFP was aboard.
    •  
  • This aerial view taken from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea shows floating debris spotted in the same area as other items being investigated by Indonesian authorities as possible objects from missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 on December 30, 2014. Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted during a aerial search on December 30 for the missing AirAsia plane, according to information from the flight on which AFP was aboard.
Enlarge
TV ONE/REUTERS
Three bodies have been recovered in a debris field floating in the sea off Borneo — including what appeared to be a life jacket and the cabin door — by the Indonesian military Tuesday on the third day of an intensive search for AirAsia Flight 8501, authorities said.
Shortly after Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency Chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said he was "95% certain" the wreckage, just six miles from the plane's last reported position, belonged to the missing Airbus A320-200 passenger jet, AirAsia officials confirmed that the debris was, in fact, from the plane.
An Indonesian air force Hercules search jet overhead pinpointed bodies and the murky outline of a plane underwater, Soelistyo added.
Bodies, Debris Spotted in Search for Lost AirAsia Plane
NY Daily News
Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto (center) and Indonesian Air Force crew show pieces of luggage and what is believed to be an emergency slide from the AirAsia plane.
PreviousNext
  • epa04542782 Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto (C) and Indonesian Air Force crew show pieces of luggage and what is believed to be an emergency slide from the AirAsia plane which was recovered during a search and rescue operation and brought to the military base in Pangkalan Bun, central Borneo, Indonesia, 30 December 2014. Others are not identified. Floating debris, a possible fuselage, and several bodies were spotted 30 December by rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane with 162 people on board, as officials said they were nearly certain they had found the remains of flight QZ8501. AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 disappeared from radar over the Java Sea after taking off from Surabaya in Indonesia's East Java province en route to Singapore on 28 December morning. AirAsia said 155 of the people on board were Indonesians. The others included three from South Korea, and one each from Singapore, Malaysia, France and Britain. EPA/BAGUS INDAHONO
    •  
  • epa04542781 Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto (C) and Indonesian Air Force crew show pieces of luggage and what is believed to be an emergency slide from the AirAsia plane which was recovered during a search and rescue operation and brought to the military base in Pangkalan Bun, central Borneo, Indonesia, 30 December 2014. Others are not identified. Floating debris, a possible fuselage, and several bodies were spotted 30 December by rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane with 162 people on board, as officials said they were nearly certain they had found the remains of flight QZ8501. AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 disappeared from radar over the Java Sea after taking off from Surabaya in Indonesia's East Java province en route to Singapore on 28 December morning. AirAsia said 155 of the people on board were Indonesians. The others included three from South Korea, and one each from Singapore, Malaysia, France and Britain. EPA/BAGUS INDAHONO
Enlarge
BAGUS INDAHONO/EPA
“Today we evacuated three bodies and they are now in the warship Bung Tomo,” said Soelistyo, adding that one body was male and two were female
Previous reports suggesting that 40 bodies had been found have been attributed to miscommunication by navy staff.
"AirAsia Indonesia regrets to inform that The National Search and Rescue Agency Republic of Indonesia today confirmed that the debris found earlier today is indeed from QZ850, the flight that had lost contact with air traffic control on the morning of 28th," reads a statement issued Tuesday.
$esc.html($image.alt)
$esc.html($image.alt)
$esc.html($image.alt)
$esc.html($image.alt)
VIEW GALLERYAirAsia relatives distraught as bodies found in sea
The search and rescue operations was to continue Tuesday as authorities scoured the sea off Borneo for 115 remaining passengers, pilots and staff members, according to the statement, which confirmed that aircraft debris had been located in the Karimata Strait around 110 nautical miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun, a town in Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia.
BASAMAS/REUTERS
The bodies were recovered, swollen but intact, and brought to an Indonesian navy ship, National Search and Rescue Director SB Supriyadi told reporters in the nearest town, Pangkalan Bun. The corpses did not have life jackets on.
Images on Indonesian television showed a half-naked body bobbing in the sea off the Southeast Asian island. Search and rescue teams were lowered on ropes from a hovering helicopter to retrieve corpses.
"The body seemed bloated," said Lt. Tri Wibowo, who was aboard the Hercules flight.
Family members at the crisis center set up at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya reacted tearfully, some fainting at the news of a possible crash site.
“My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501,” AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said via Twitter. “On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am.”
MADE NAGI/EPARelatives in Indonesia watch a television broadcast of the evacuation of a body found near the search area for the missing AirAsia plane.
A helicopter had been dispatched to pick up at least 10 pieces of debris to see if it could be from the missing flight in an area about 100 miles south of Pangkalan Bun in the Java Sea, Indonesia National Search and Rescue spokesman Yusuf Latif said.
The jet, which was carrying 162 people, vanished from radar at7:24 a.m. Singapore time on Sunday. The flight disappeared without sending out a distress signal in the middle of a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.
The plane’s pilot had asked air-traffic controllers to allow him to increase his elevation to steer clear of a storm, but permission was not granted due to other jets being at the higher elevation. The plane was gone from the radar just minutes after requesting permission to ascend.
A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Sampson, was expected to join the effort Tuesday, an international fleet of 30 ships, 15 aircrafts, and seven helicopters tasked with scouring a widening search area of 11,000 nautical miles.
The wide-ranging effort had turned up several possible clues. Two Cessna jets were sent to verify reports of smoke on an island in the search zone while four helicopters were dispatched late Monday from the western part of Borneo to search over Bangka and Belitung, two small islands in Indonesia's Java Sea.
Two mysterious oil slicks spotted Monday were later revealed to be coral reefs, officials said.
Missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501.JOSHUA PAUL/AP PHOTOThe AirAsia plane (not pictured) departed from Surabaya, Indonesia, on Sunday for a two-hour flight to Singapore. Then it vanished.
at