News Digest

AirAsia plane fuselage to be lifted to surface after divers beaten back

An Indonesian search official said Friday that the crashed AirAsia jet’s fuselage will be lifted to the surface after sea conditions again prevented divers from examining the large chunk of wreckage. National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said that rescue teams discovered more wreckage despite the strong current and poor visibility. He said: he said. “We also found what seems to be a passenger seat in which we thought there still bodies tied on it,” but did not specify whether or not the seat was inside the fuselage section that sits on the seabed at a depth of 28 metres. The 30-metre-long part of the plane body with a wing attached was sighted Wednesday.

Apart from the fuselage, we found what we suspected as the aircraft’s cockpit and also an engine.

National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo

Rescuers believe that many of the bodies are still inside the main fuselage. Soelistyo said the failure of the underwater examination of the wreckage left no option but to lift the fuselage, either by using floating balloons as the tail part was lifted early this week, or using cranes from tugboats. He did not say when the operation would start. Earlier, chief of operation of the agency, Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi said the wreckage that appears to be the cockpit was located by sonar imagery about 500 metres from the fuselage and partly embedded in the mud.