The body was spotted by personnel on board RSS Persistence within the Republic of Singapore Navy's designated search area, according to a Ministry of Defence statement on Sunday.
ON BOARD RSS PERSISTENCE: One more body was found and recovered on Sunday (Jan 4) in the search operation for AirAsia flight QZ8501, which went missing last Sunday.
The body was spotted by personnel on RSS Persistence at 7.58am and recovered on board the ship at 8.46am, said Singapore’s Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) in a statement. The body was found within the Republic of Singapore Navy’s designated search area in the Java Sea.
It is not clear yet if the victim was a male or female, according to a Channel NewsAsia reporter on board RSS Persistence.
The Indonesian authorities have been informed and the body will be flown to Pangkalan Bun, said MINDEF.
The plane went down with 162 people on board, and 31 bodies have been recovered so far.
FIFTH LARGE OBJECT SPOTTED
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency BASARNAS said a fifth large object was discovered underwater on Sunday morning. It measured about 9.8 x 1.1 x 0.4 metres, it added. Search teams had found four large parts of the aircraft on Saturday.
At a news conference on Sunday, BASARNAS also said dives have been temporarily suspended due to bad weather, and a remotely operated underwater vehicle has been sent to the search site. There are 17 Russian divers with unmanned submersibles at the search area too, it added.
There were 20 aircraft and 27 ships deployed in total on Sunday combing the waters for the victims and wreckage, the agency said.
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