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ec. 31, p3

After two days of fruitless effort, the search and rescue operation discovered on Tuesday debris and bodies from AirAsia flight QZ8501 in the Karimata Strait, the waters that separate Belitung Island and Kalimantan. The first discovery was made in the afternoon when a C-295 transport aircraft discovered floating debris in the strait. Shortly after, an Air Force Hercules C-130 found an object casting a shadow in the ocean, thought to resemble an airplane.

Rescue workers on the aircraft also found three bodies thought to be victims of the crash at 1:25 p.m., while the Indonesian Navy warship, KRI Bung Tomo, discovered an emergency exit door at 1:50 p.m. All of the discoveries were made within sector V, one of 13 sectors in the search and rescue area, measuring 150-by-200-square nautical miles. '€œNow we are focusing our recovery process in sector V,'€ National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief Air Chief Marshall Henry Bambang Soelistyo told a press conference at his office in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday.

Your comments:

I feel sorry for the families of the passengers because they do not know anything about what caused this accident. But, now everyone surely hopes that everything will be done in time.

Appreciation to our country because we handled this case almost perfectly and it is necessary to underline because we used our own efforts. Thank you everyone. Bless us.

Ryo Yudha

In bad times it'€™s good to work together. If you send rescue workers from more countries you are able to check more square miles. If foreign countries are looking on the left you can use your planes and boats on the right. A person in the water has a chance to survive swimming for a maximum of 24 hours.

For the victims, RIP.

Jeroen

My condolences to the families affected. Our prayers are with you. Thanks for the hard work of the multinational search team. We can now close the chapter of '€œsearch'€ and we can begin the recovery and investigation process.

Korslet

The accident of the AirAsia Airbus A320 makes the weather a new factor to be considered in this analysis of the booming aviation industry in Southeast Asia.

Global warming permits a higher humidity content in the air, which energizes the formation of superstorms reaching very high altitudes in the stratosphere in tropical regions like Southeast Asia, causing the formation of microscopic, invisible and undetectable ice crystals at very high altitudes in extending areas surrounding the storm cells, resulting in serious problems to flight safety, like the freezing of pitot tubes, freezing of angle of attack probes, freezing of engine intakes and engine flameouts.

This new phenomena known as '€œice crystal icing'€ was unknown before 1990.

Urgent preventive action is needed to confront this hazard. Ignoring it is not an option.

Ecumenico

I was just reading a lot of the opinions on a certain forum that stated the search and rescue (SAR) team had done a pretty good job with the info or weather they had.

If no emergency beacons were activated and the best information was last known location, how long would be expected to locate the fuselage? Probably the thing that surprised me most was they took so long to accept assistance from other countries. If it were me I would have taken everything I could get straight away, not wait over 24 hours to say yes.

Also, I guess the question begs (and has been raised by many) why the emergency signals weren'€™t activated?

Some say the captain would have been completely focused on saving the plane, while others say someone would usually find the time to hit the switch. I wouldn'€™t know, but it has been an interesting conversation to follow.

Billy

As an expert in aviation and SAR or disaster coordination I again repeat there are many grey areas associated with the loss of this aircraft and certainly critical mistakes that have been made and continue to be made in the SAR operation.

I do not accept the praise for the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) or their coordination of media briefs which are still deeply flawed. It is clear that when any incident takes place the actors and indeed the government and military officials always get it wrong with conflicting stories.

Whenever an accident/incident occurs in any country the forensic evidence pans out in such a way that eventually all leaders of each group involved all come up with the same story, which proves the authenticity of the task on hand and more importantly no delaying tactics are used, in this accident that was not the case and briefs were made available from various authorities and sources that totally contradicted the main theme as to what was going on.

That therefore shows a weakness in the forensic evidence that was revealed on a daily basis.

When the black box is recovered it should be made available for analysis not only to those concerned but also to other interested parties, which I will not divulge at this early stage. The truth will eventually be found.

Peter Eyre

I wish to pass along, my sincere condolences to all the families affected by the AirAsia tragedy. I have no family or friends who were aboard, but do feel a sense of kinship and respect for the loss of life and pain each family must feel.

It does not matter the religious beliefs, all life is precious and my heart aches for those suffering at this time. I hope in some small way my mere words can bring some comfort and relief to those in despair. May God bless and hold each family.

May God comfort and assure all that He is in control and those who lost their lives, are in a much better place under Him.

Please share my prayer for all those families, and may God bless Indonesia.

Walker Techie