AirAsia Jet Tail Found: Basarnas Chief

Jakarta Globe,  Jan 07, 2015

An undated handout picture released by the Indonesian Search And Rescue
Agency (BASARNAS) on Jan. 7, 2014 shows a part of the crashed AirAsia Flight
 QZ 8501 laying on the sea floor, off Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia.
Rescue teams found the tail of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea
 with 162 people on board on Dec. 28, 2014, the search and rescue chief Bambang
Sulistyo confirmed on Jan. 7. (EPA Photo/BASARNAS)

Jakarta. Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, or Basarnas, on Wednesday announced they had recovered the tail from the wreck of AirAsia Flight QZ8501.

“We have a picture of the part and we can confirm that it’s the tail,” Bambang Soelistyo, chief of the Basarnas, told reporters at a press conference in Jakarta.

Soelistyo said the picture — taken by one of the recovery divers — showed the piece on the seabed with “AX” and “Air” visible on the side, which confirmed it was part of the Indonesia AirAsia plane. The piece of the wreckage was about 10 meters in length, five meters in width and three meters high, according to a report from Detik.com quoting Bambang.

The tail is the section where the crucial black box voice and flight data recorders are located.

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes has tweeted:

I am led to believe the tail section has been found. If right part of tail section then the black box should be there.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) January 7, 2015

The A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea on Dec. 28 en route from Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board. As of Wednesday morning, the total number of bodies recovered was 40.

On Monday Reuters reported a captain of an Indonesian Navy patrol vessel claimed to have found the tail of the Indonesia AirAsia plane, but there was no confirmation.

Indonesia’s meteorological agency, or BMKG, has suggested bad weather may have at least partly caused the A320-200 to crash. Tropical storms are frequent near the equator during the current wet season.

“The most probable weather phenomenon was icing which can cause engine damage due to a cooling process. This is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of existing meteorological data,” a BMKG report, released last week, said.