AirAsia flight QZ8501: Passengers found holding hands
WHAT WE KNOW:
- Debris and bodies from AirAsia flight QZ8501 were found Tuesday afternoon after a gruelling search by international teams. Indonesian president Joko Widodo says the recovery of the passengers and the crew is now the priority.
- At least six bodies have been pulled from the sea. Earlier reports of 40 bodies recovered was a “miscommunication”, according to the Indonesian navy.
- Images of floating bodies were broadcast on Indonesian TV and spread on social media, triggering an uproar by families of the victims and sparking scenes of raw emotion from distressed relatives.
- Naval vessels and aircraft from countries such as Singapore continue to arrive in the vicinity to assist in the retrieval effort. The US is now sending a second naval vessel to join search operations.
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The pilot who spotted the first three bodies from the AirAsia disaster says the victims were found holding hands in the water.
Lieutenant Airman Tri Wobowo, one of the co-pilots of the aircraft participating in the search for flight QZ8501, told Indonesian newspaper Kompas: "There are seven to eight people. Three [of them] again hold hands."
Currently, stormy weather has forced Indonesian rescuers to suspend their search for the bodies of those on board the doomed flight.
It was more than two days after the Airbus A320-200 disappeared en route from Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya to Singapore that aerial searchers found wreckage and bodies floating in the Java Sea.
The plane carrying 162 people crashed southwest of the island of Borneo, with debris including an exit door and a blue suitcase so far retrieved from the area.
Indonesian search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said in a morning press conference that bad weather has forced his teams into "wait-and-see" mode.
"Weather is bad currently. High tides and heavy rains. Every element is now in their position ready to make a move when weather improves," he said.
Soelistyo said that six bodies had now been recovered, including a woman in crew uniform.
Aviation experts believe the fuselage may be easily found as the aircraft hay have broke up when it hit the water.
"The fact that the debris appears fairly contained suggests the aircraft broke up when it hit the water, rather than in the air," Neil Hansford, a former pilot and chairman of consultancy firm Strategic Aviation Solutions, said on Wednesday.
The search is continuing in two different sectors of ocean — sectors five and seven — because the bodies were found well apart from the main wreckage, presumably having been carried there by strong currents.
Hundreds of people from the military, police and national rescue agency are on standby waiting for clear weather.
Wreckage of the AirAsia plane was discovered by 38-year-old local fisherman Mohammed Taha, who said he wasn't aware of the plane crash at the time and assumed the debris was ocean junk.
"I found a lot of debris - small and large - in the Tujuh islands," Taha said.
"The largest was four metres long and two metres wide. They were red coloured with white silver. It looked like the AirAsia colours."
Earlier, relatives of the 162 passengers on the missing flight hugged each other and burst into tears in Surabaya as they watched footage showing a body floating in the sea on a television feed showing a press conference held by Sulistyo in Jakarta.
They hugged one another and continued crying until an AirAsia officer shouted, "This is crazy", an AFP journalist at the scene said.
One man fainted and had to be taken out on a stretcher.
“There was a man swaying on the waves. After I looked at the photo carefully on my laptop, I understood it was a human body,” a lieutenant of the Indonesian Air Force told local media.
President Joko Widodo met the passengers' relatives, where a crisis centre has been set up, and he promised to ensure a massive search.
AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes also visited the centre and said he was experiencing an airline chief executive's "worst nightmare".
"This is a scar with me for the rest of my life," he told reporters.
The AFP photographer on the search flight that spotted the plane's debris said he had seen about 10 objects in the sea resembling a life raft, life jackets and long orange tubes, which were later confirmed to be from the missing aircraft.
The objects were seen 10 kilometres from the location the plane was last captured by radar.
How the plane lost contact
Before losing contact with Air Traffic Control, the AirAsia pilots had been worried about the weather and had sought permission to climb above threatening clouds.
Air traffic control could not say yes immediately as there was no room.
Six other airliners were crowding the airspace, forcing Flight 8501 to remain at a lower altitude.
Only five minutes later, the jet had disappeared from the radar without issuing a distress signal.
The last communication from the cockpit to air traffic control was a request by one of the pilots to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet because of the weather.
The captain, Iryanto, had more than 20,000 flying hours, AirAsia said.
People who knew Iryanto recalled that he was an experienced military pilot, flying F-16 fighters before shifting to commercial aviation.
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