“Heading back to Pontianak, guys! We’re now in the airport,” said 8-year-old Athar Rizki Riawan as he recorded himself playing around in Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, before boarding Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 on Saturday.

Athar was among 10 children on the plane that plunged into the Java Sea minutes after taking off, as was 2-year-old Yumma Fanisyatuzahra, his second cousin whose pink Minnie Mouse hoodie was later found intact by navy divers.

The crash has ripped a gaping hole in their family since Yumma’s mother Ratih Windania, as well as her grandparents Toni Ismail and Rahmawati, were also on the same plane, among the 40 adult passengers and 12 crew members who perished.

The five victims had gone on vacation to West Java’s Bandung in late December and had planned to go back to West Kalimantan on New Year’s Day. They postponed the plan until they underwent COVID-19 swab tests as required for air travel.

Athar’s father, Iwan Kurniawan, is desperately hoping that there will be a bright spot in the midst of a search shrouded in uncertainty.

“While the airline and the authorities have yet to confirm that their bodies have been found, we are still hoping that some of them survived,” Iwan told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

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Iwan said he had visited the crisis center in Pontianak’s Supadio International Airport every afternoon since the crash to seek information and to provide victim data, while hoping to receive some good news.

Authorities have been collecting pre- and post-death data, including personal files, fingerprints and DNA. On Wednesday, 15 family members of the victims were brought from Pontianak to Jakarta for the identification efforts.

National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Rusdi Hartono said the police had received 134 DNA samples, 46 bags of victims’ property, as well as 139 body bags of human remains as of Thursday. The joint search-and-rescue team has collected 239 body bags of human remains, 40 bags of small debris and 33 large pieces of aircraft material.

As of Thursday, forensic investigators had identified 12 victims, namely Okky Bisma, Khasanah, Fadly Satrianto, Asy Habul Yamin, Indah Halimah Putri, Agus Minarni, Ricko, Ihsan Adhlan Hakim, Supianto, Pipit Piyono, Mia Tresetyani Wadu and Yohanes Suherdi. Okky and Asy's bodies have been handed over to their families for burial.

All identified victims’ families are set to receive compensation from state-owned insurance company PT Jasa Raharja, while the Social Affairs Ministry has also offered both compensation and psychological services.

Read also: Sriwijaya Air crash victim families give blood for DNA matching

Rafiq Yusuf Al Idrus – whose wife Panca Widia Nursanti was among the victims – said his 12-year-old daughter would need this counseling the most because she was very disturbed by the tragedy.

“I’m waiting for her [my wife], but Insya Allah [God willing], I’ve also learned to let her go. But I hope they will send people here for my youngest daughter, who has been blaming me for not going with her mother,” Rafiq told the Post.

Panca was a vocational high school teacher in Pontianak, whom Rafiq described as "a very cheerful, personable lady who liked to make jokes and was admired by all of her students".

“She was an animal lover. In the past year, she had taken care of 16 cats at home,” he said.

Rafiq recalled that before the flight, Panca told him that the weather was so bad that her flight got delayed and asked him to pray for her. In the afternoon, he went to Supadio to pick her up, before learning the awful news over the internet.

Read also: Hunt for crashed Sriwijaya Air cockpit tapes suspended due to bad weather

Indonesian presenter Arie Kuncoro Untung shared a personal post soon after the incident, writing that Yumma’s mother, Ratih, was the younger sister of an associate, Irfansyah Riyanto, chairman of a local charity community actively donating rice to people in need. “Many people, Insya Allah, will testify to the goodness of this family,” he wrote on Instagram.

In a separate post, Arie revealed that the flight’s captain, Afwan, was his senior in high school and a passionate ustad (Islamic teacher) he admired. On Sunday, the captain was trending on Twitter, with internet users sharing his words: “No matter how high you fly, you won’t reach heaven if you don’t pray five times a day."

Apart from human remains, the search is focused on the cockpit voice recorder, of which the underwater acoustic beacon was retrieved on Tuesday afternoon along with the flight data recorder of the Boeing 737-500.

The two so-called black boxes hold the key to uncovering how the accident happened, following preliminary findings from the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT), which suggested that the plane had not exploded in mid-air, and that it, while dropping from an altitude of 3,350 meters to 75 m, was still capable of sending data.

Representatives from the KNKT and Sriwijaya Air met the victims’ families on Tuesday, with the KNKT promising a detailed and thorough report after the investigation was completed. In accordance with international regulations, an initial report will be available to the public no later than 30 days after the accident.