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Sea currents shift AirAsia search westward
Entering the 10th day of the search and rescue (SAR) operation for AirAsia flight QZ8501, a joint multinational team has not been able to locate and retrieve the Airbus A320-200âs fuselage, which is suspected to still hold the bodies of many of the victims
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Entering the 10th day of the search and rescue (SAR) operation for AirAsia flight QZ8501, a joint multinational team has not been able to locate and retrieve the Airbus A320-200's fuselage, which is suspected to still hold the bodies of many of the victims.
The SAR team decided to expand the search area and shift it slightly westward on Tuesday, according to the National Search and Rescue Team (Basarnas).
The team initially divided the search area in the Karimata Strait, which separates the Bangka Belitung islands from Kalimantan, into four sectors with one priority search zone located between sector I and sector IV.
A second priority zone was added on Tuesday.
'Today's operation was conducted by adding a second priority search area. The position [of the additional search area] is within the western sector,' Basarnas chief Air Chief Marshal F. Henry Bambang Soelistyo said at his office in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.
The second priority zone, which is 10 by 10 nautical miles in size, is outside the initial search area.
In the new search area, efforts are being focused on finding the wreckage of the plane.
'In the second priority zone, we will look for underwater objects, whether it's the fuselage or the blackboxes,' he said.
Soelistyo said that the move was taken after considering the fact that the number of dead bodies and debris found in the original search area was getting smaller, prompting speculation that the so-far unrecovered objects have been carried by the sea currents to the west.
The Basarnas has deployed five ships to the new search zone: the KRI Hasanuddin, the KRI Usman Harun, the KN Geo Survey, the KN Baruna Jaya I and the Cress Onix tugboat.
All of the ships are equipped with sonar systems and pinger locators to detect the signals sent by the blackboxes, which are expected to send signals for no more than 30 days.
The search will also get more assets with the Chinese Transport ation Ministry sending the Nan Hai Jiu 101 ship and the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration dispatching three experts on flight data recorders.
The ship left the Chinese town of Haikou on Monday and is expected to arrive at its designated operation area on Friday.
Also on Tuesday, the East Java Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team identified three more bodies of the 37 already discovered from the doomed flight.
The three bodies, labeled B026, B031 and B033, were discovered on Sunday.
The B031 body was that of Indra Yulianto, a 51-year-old male from Probolinggo, East Java, while B026 and B033 were Hindarto Halim and Jou Brian Youvito, respectively.
'Hindarto Halim was a 61-year-old male and Jou Brian Youvito was a 19-year-old male student. Both of them lived in Surabaya,' East Java's DVI head Brig. Gen. Budiyono said on Tuesday.
So far, the East Java Police DVI has identified 16 bodies recovered by the joint SAR team.
To help with the identification process of the crash victims' bodies, which are badly decomposing, the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) has dispatched two forensic dentists, Sudibyo and Ahmad Syaify.
Sudibyo said that the DVI team could not rely on fingerprints and facial recognition techniques because of advanced decomposition.
He said that DNA tests also took a long time, which was why he believed dental identification was the most effective way.
Besides getting help from local forensic experts, the DVI team has also received assistance from other countries.
'Five forensic experts from the United Arab Emirates and a DNA expert from South Korea have joined us since 9 a.m. today and they will work together with the other 229 experts to identify the bodies,' National Police's DVI chief Sr. Comr. Anton Castilani said on Tuesday.
