News

Ten bodies recovered in AirAsia wreckage hunt

by IBNS 01 Jan 2015, 09:37 pm

Jakarta, Jan 2 (IBNS) Hampered by bad weather the search for the black box and the bodies of victims of the crashed Indonesia AirAsia continued in the northern Java sea off Borneo on Friday as international experts joined the hunt and ten bodies were fished out.

An airAsia report said Indonesian Minister of Transportation has deployed  5 additional vessels to the searching area. More than 90 vessels and aircraft from numerous countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and United States were involved in the operation.

Indonesian officials said two ships carrying hydrophones also left the southern Borneo port of Pangkalan Bun on Friday to intensify the search operation. 

However, inclement weather was hampering divers from looking for the wreckage of the Airbus A320-200 that plummeted into the sea on Sunday with 162 passengers aboard. So far 10 bodies have been recovered and there is no trace of any survivor.

"With the increasing amount of evidence and data, it's  likely that we are getting closer to the fuselage of the AirAsia aircraft, based on what has been detected by sea vessels," Supriadi, operations director of the Indonesian search and rescue agency, told reporters.

Meanwhile, one of the disaster victims whose body was recovered had been identified as Hayati Luthfi Hamid, a female. The Disaster Victim Identification Police Department of Republic of Indonesia (DVI POLRI) confirmed this after matching forensic andante-mortem tests with the DNA evidence submitted by the families. 

Sunu Widyatmoko, Chief Executive Officer AirAsia Indonesia handed the remains to her family at a ceremony held at Bhayangkara.

He said, "On behalf of everyone at AirAsia, we extend our profound condolences to the family and friends of late Hayati Luthfi Hamid. AirAsia will support everything that the family may need during these difficult times." The other bodies, recovered in KarimataStrait, had been transported in Bhayangkara Hospital for immediate identification by DVI POLRI.