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Three bodies arrive in Pangkalan Bun

The bodies of three more AirAsia flight QZ8501 victims carried by a US Navy Seahawk helicopter arrived at Iskandar Airport, Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, Sunday afternoon

The Jakarta Post
Palangkaraya
Sun, January 4, 2015

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Three bodies arrive in Pangkalan Bun

T

he bodies of three more AirAsia flight QZ8501 victims carried by a US Navy Seahawk helicopter arrived at Iskandar Airport, Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, Sunday afternoon.

Dozens of National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) personnel wearing white plastic-made outfits, masks and gloves moved the three bodies in black corpse bags from the helicopter to ambulances, which later brought them to Sultan Imanudin Hospital in Pangkalan Bun.

Indonesian Air Force CN 295 pilot Maj.Setiawan earlier reported that he spotted three bodies '€“ suspected to be flight QZ8501 passengers '€“ floating at a location with the coordinates of 04:02:55 south and 110:21:96 east in Karimata Strait waters.

'€œThe bodies were too far away so it was difficult to identify whether they were male or female,'€ said Setiawan as quoted by Antara news agency on Sunday.

He said the presence of the three bodies was first reported by US helicopter Seahawk Alt 500 FT, which was carrying out a search operation over the area. Following up on the report, warship USS Sampson and Japanese warship JS Onami headed to the location to recover the bodies.

As of day eight of the AirAsia search operation, 33 bodies have been recovered, 30 of which have been taken to Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Surabaya, East Java, for identification. The three newly recovered bodies will be flown to Surabaya later today. (ebf)(+++)

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