Items Resembling Slide, Plane Door ’95 Percent’ Certain to be Debris From AirAsia Plane

Jakarta Globe & AFP, Dec 30, 2014

This aerial view taken from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the
 Java Sea shows floating debris spotted in the same area as other items being
investigated by authorities. (AFP Photo/Bay Ismoyo)

Jakarta. Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, or Barsanas, has confirmed with “95 percent” certainty that the items spotted during an aerial search on Tuesday is debris from the missing Indonesia AirAsia plane.

“We can confirm that with 95 percent certainty that what we found are the objects from the plane QZ8501,” Barsanas chief Bambang Soelistyo told a press conference.

Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted in the sea during an aerial search for Flight QZ8501 about midday.

BeritaSatu TV reported Indonesian rescue teams found the debris 194 kilometers off the coast of Pangkalan Bun.

Bambang said vessels were on their way to the site to collect the debris and would take it to Pangkalan Bun.

“We’re also sending a task force of 11 divers from the Navy and 10 divers from Basarnas,” he said. “We’re leaving it up to the KNKT [The National Committee for Transportation Safety] to finalize the investigation of the debris.”

Local media have reported six bodies have been retrieved from the sea, but the Jakarta Globe has been unable to confirm the number.

Relatives of the 155 passengers and seven crew members burst into tears and hugged each other after footage of a body was broadcast during the Basarnas press conference in Jakarta. AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted he was rushing to Surabaya to be with the victims’ families.

Bambang told reporters that a “shadow” on the seabed spotted by an Air Force plane was believed to be the missing AirAsia jet.

“At 12:50 the air force Hercules found an object described as a shadow at the bottom of the sea in the form of a plane,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, an AFP photographer on the search flight that spotted the debris said he had seen objects in the sea resembling a life raft, life jackets and long orange tubes.

Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told reporters: “We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-colored objects which we could not photograph.”

“The position is 10 kilometers from the location the plane was last captured by radar,” he said.

Agus displayed 10 photos of objects resembling a plane door, emergency slide, and a square box-like object.

“It is not really clear … it could be the wall of the plane or the door of the plane,” he said.

“Let’s pray that those objects are what we are really trying to find,” he said in Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan.

Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 disappeared Sunday morning over the Java Sea with 162 people on board enroute from Surabaya to Singapore.

The search is focused on waters around the islands of Bangka and Belitung in the Java Sea, across from Kalimantan.

Related Article:

Families of Victims of AirAsia QZ8501 React to News of Discovery

Family members of passengers onboard the missing Malaysian air carrier

 AirAsia flight QZ8501 react after watching news reports showing an unidentified body

 floating in the Java sea, inside the crisis-centre set up at Juanda International 

Airport in Surabaya on Dec. 30, 2014. (AFP Photo/Manan Vatsyayana)