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| Rescue team members in a boat communicate with other members of the team on the deck of the Search and Rescue (SAR) ship KN Purworejo during a search operation for passengers onboard AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in the Java Sea on Jan 4, 2015. -- Photo Reuters |
SURABAYA -
Family members of passengers on the ill-fated AirAsia Flight QZ8501 have
received an offer to board an Indonesian naval ship to visit the plane's search
location.
This is to
"to lessen their sorrow and sense of loss", said Indonesia's armed
forces chief Moeldoko on Monday.
They will
be ferried from Surabaya, where the AirAsia crisis centre for relatives is
located, to Pangkalan Bun via military flight.
Speaking at
a press conference at the East Java police headquarters after he visited
relatives at the crisis centre, General Moeldoko said he assured family members
that the armed forces "is working hard (to find bodies and the plane
wreckage) with friendly countries".
"I
told them to have trust in the armed forces that we are working hard," he
said.
Indonesia's
police chief Sutarman said he also promised relatives that all bodies recovered
will be identified.
"We
are working to identify all bodies recovered, no matter the condition they
arrive in, and to release them to their families," said Gen Sutarman.
The
Disaster Victim Identification team at the Bhayangkara hospital, 100m away from
the crisis centre and where all recovered bodies will be taken to, now comprises
260 local and foreign forensic experts, he said.
While
fingerprint identification will take "just a matter of minutes",
other methods of identification such as through dental records and DNA testing
will take longer, he said.
This is the
first time both military and police chiefs are visiting relatives of the 162
people on board the ill-fated flight, which crashed in the Java Sea on Dec 28
while en route from Surabaya to Singapore.
A total of
37 bodies have been recovered, with 34 of those brought to Bhayangkara
hospital. Only nine have been released to their families. The other 25 remain
in cold storage here, waiting to be identified by forensic experts working
round the clock.
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