SURABAYA, Indonesia — More ships arrived Friday with sensitive equipment to search for the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the more than 150 people still missing since it crashed five days ago.
Rear Marshal Henry Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, said the search would be stepped up as long as the weather allowed.
“We will focus on underwater detection,” said Soelistyo, adding that ships from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. had been on the scene from before dawn Friday to try to pinpoint the wreckage and the all-important black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
The Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea on Sunday with 162 people on board. Nine bodies have been recovered.
Nine planes, many with metal detectors, were also scouring a 8,380-square-mile area off Pangkalan Bun, the closest town on Borneo island to the search area. Two Japanese ships with three helicopters are on their way to the area, Soelistyo said.
He said bad weather, which has hindered the search the past several days, was a worry, with forecasts of rain, strong winds and high waves up to 13 feet until Sunday. The strong sea currents have kept debris moving.
He estimated the fuselage was at a depth of about 80 to 100 feet and vowed to recover the bodies of “our brothers and sisters … whatever the conditions we face.”
The body of one victim has been identified and was returned to her family Thursday, one of many painful reunions to come.
Hayati Lutfiah Hamid’s identity was confirmed by fingerprints and other means, said Col. Budiyono of East Java’s Disaster Victim Identification Unit.
Her body, in a dark casket topped with flowers, was handed over to family members during a ceremony at a police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city where the plane took off. A relative cried as she placed both hands on the polished wood.
The coffin was then taken to a village and lowered into a muddy grave, following Muslim obligations requiring bodies to be buried quickly. An imam said a simple prayer as about 150 people gathered in the drizzling rain.
Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas in Australia said there’s a good chance the plane hit the water largely intact and that many passengers remain inside it.
He added that bodies recovered so far would have come out with a breach in the fuselage. “But most passengers still should have had their seat belts on, particularly as the plane was going into weather. The captain would have still had the seat belt sign on.”
