Divers go down to AirAsia #QZ8501 wreckage as weather clears

Indonesian search officials sent divers down to the bed of the Java Sea during a break in bad weather Tuesday in hopes of recovering more bodies from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501. Recovery teams, hampered by rough seas, have found fewer than 40 bodies since the plane crashed on December 28, carrying 162 people from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. “Some divers have started to dive to the seabed,” search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters on the tenth day of the major search involving several countries. The recovery teams have yet to find the “black box” flight data recorders, crucial to determining the cause of the crash, although they have located five major parts of the plane on the seabed including a “suspected tail” - where flight recorders are usually housed.

Today’s weather is friendly, the team can work.

Head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo,

The debris found so far indicates the body of the plane broke into parts. The operation has prioritised finding the bodies of the victims, all but seven of whom were Indonesian. Some bodies were found still strapped into their seats. The number recovered still stood at 37 on Tuesday, another search official, S.B. Supriyadi, told AFP from Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo island with the nearest airstrip to the wreckage. AirAsia, which began operations in 2001 and quickly became one of the region’s leaders in low-cost air travel, has not experienced any other crashes and is widely considered a benchmark for safety and professionalism.

Asia-Pacific QZ8501