Tail of AirAsia Plane Found, Black Box Could Be Near

The SAR on a plane crash QZ -8501 Airasia has entered the 11th day.  The latest report from Indonesia’s search and rescue agency confirms that the tail has been found on the seafloor about 30 km  from the plane’s last known location.

According to BASARNAS the tail was found today in areas of so called sector 2 priority at 10:30 January 7, 2015.

“Today the team managed to find the tail. From the results of the use of sidescan sonar and multibeam echosounder detected that there are parts of the plane which has the intial “A and X” in accordance with the aircraft body Airasia. It was confirmed that the results of the photo is a part of the tail,” said Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency.

To date, BASARNAS confirmed to have recovered a total of 40 remains of which 16 remains have been identified by DVI POLRI and 24 remains are still being identified.

More than 40 vessels and 20 helicopters were deployed and focused to find the exact location of the plane’s wreckage as well as the black box.

In addition, the Geo Survey vessel, Baruna Jaya, is using a Pinger Locator Beacon technology to locate the Black Box. Meanwhile, the bad weather has been hampering divers that are covering the search and rescue area, making it difficult to locate additional parts of the wreckage.

Bambang Soelistyo concluded: “Today we successfully obtained the best part being the main target of the search since yesterday, therefore the tail has been found and confirmed.”

Following this announcement, the AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes posted a message on his Twitter, saying: “I am led to believe the tail section has been found. If  right part of tail section then the black box should be there.”

Subsea World News Staff