Recovery teams battle ‘extreme weather’ in hunt for AirAsia black boxes

Recovery teams narrowed the search area for AirAsia Flight 8501 on Friday, saying they were hopeful they will close in on the plane's crash site despite bad weather hindering efforts. So far, 30 bodies have been recovered from the Java Sea off the island of Borneo. 

Of the corpses recovered, 21 were found on Friday, many of them by a U.S. Navy ship sent to the region to assist with the effort, Indonesian officials said. Search teams have also deployed side-scan sonar equipment to survey the seabed and pinger locators to fine-tune their search for the plane's black boxes, crucial to determining why the plane crashed\. More debris believed to be parts of the missing jet were also found Friday.

Rough weather in recent days has hampered the search for the plane's fuselage, which is believed to be in relatively shallow water of 80 to 100 feet. Indonesian air force rescue coordinator S.B. Supriyadi said Friday that officials were pressing on despite high winds and 10 to 13 foot waves.

"The search is still proceeding in systematic way, despite the extreme weather," he told a press conference.

Flight 8501's Airbus A320, carrying 162 passengers and crew members, went down Sunday, halfway into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore. Minutes before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds and requested clearance to go to a higher altitude, but he was denied permission because of heavy air traffic.

It remains unclear what caused it to plunge into the sea.

Indonesian search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo confirmed that 30 bodies have been recovered and that at least two victims were found in their seats. Rescue teams hope many of those on board are still in the fuselage, which has not been located.

Soelistyo added that Friday's operation was focused on an area of 1,575 square nautical miles — a tenth of the size of Thursday's search — with 29 ships and 17 aircraft engaged in the operation. The recovery effort is being aided by 40 divers who arrived Friday from Russia.

Relatives were preparing to hold funerals after three more victims were identified, including flight attendant Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, who had recently posted an Instagram picture with the message "I love you from 38,000 ft" for her boyfriend.

"I'm arriving in Surabaya to take Nisa [Fauzi] home to Palembang. I cannot describe how I feel. There are no words," AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes tweeted.

Also named was Grayson Herbert Linaksita, 11, who was traveling with his parents and 12-year-old sister for a holiday. His great-uncle Bagyono Linaksita, 73, told AFP that he was dreading breaking the news to the children's grandmother, who was on vacation in the Czech Republic.

"She doted on her two grandchildren and would send and fetch them from school every day," he said. "We have not told her the news that the whole family had died in a plane crash. Grayson was her favorite grandchild. She will certainly faint."

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17 the same airline's Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Al Jazeera and wire services