Divers find tail of downed AirAsia jet as search for black boxes continues

The tail of a crashed AirAsia jet has been found upturned on the seabed about 20 miles from the plane's last known location, Indonesia's search and rescue agency said on Wednesday, indicating the crucial black box recorders may be nearby.

Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.

Locating the tail has been a priority because the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that can provide vital clues about why the plane crashed are in the rear section of the plane, an Airbus A320-200.

"We've found the tail that has been our main target," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, said at a news conference in Jakarta. Divers identified the tail after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, he said. He displayed underwater photographs showing partial lettering on the sunken object and compared them with a picture of an intact Airbus A320-200 in AirAsia livery.

"I can confirm that what we found was the tail part from the pictures," he said, adding that the team "is still desperately trying to locate the black box."

Indonesia's Minister for Maritime Affairs Indroyono Soesilo said at another news conference, "With the finding of the tail, six SAR [search and rescue] ships are already at the location to search within a radius of 2 nautical miles."

Forty bodies and debris from the plane have been recovered from waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have been hindering divers' efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.

The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate has come under criticism from the authorities in Jakarta since the disaster. The Transport Ministry has suspended Indonesia AirAsia's Surabaya-Singapore license, saying the carrier had permission to fly the route only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight 8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.

"Flying without license was not the cause of the accident," Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan told reporters.

Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia, has made little comment but said it would fully cooperate with investigations. Indonesia's financial regulator said it did not believe the issue of whether the airline had the correct flight permits would affect insurers’ paying for claims.

On Monday the Transport Ministry said officials at the airport operator in Surabaya and air traffic control agency who allowed the flight to take off have been moved to other duties while the accident investigation is completed.

It also said it has issued a directive making it mandatory for pilots to be briefed face to face by an airline flight operations officer on weather conditions and other operational issues before every flight. Last week authorities questioned whether the pilot had followed proper weather procedures.

Until investigators can examine the black box recorders, the cause of the crash will remain a mystery, but BMKG, Indonesia's meteorological agency, has said icy conditions may have damaged the aircraft's engines. The area where the plane was lost is known for intense seasonal storms.

Indonesia is one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, and its carriers, such as Lion Air and Garuda Indonesia, are among the top customers for plane makers Airbus and Boeing.

But its safety record is checkered. The European Commission barred all Indonesia-based airlines from flying to the European Union in 2007 after a series of accidents. Exceptions to that ban have since been made for some carriers, including Garuda and AirAsia.

Reuters