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The search resumes for the AirAsia plane wreck as coffins carrying the remains of more victims arrive at hospital for identification. Paul Chapman reports.
Video provided by Reuters Newslook
Relatives carry the coffin containing the body of Hayati Lutfiah hamid, one of the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, during her burial at a cemetery in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, on Thursday.(Photo: Trisnadi, AP)
Despite heavy rain and choppy waters, searchers recovered two more bodies Thursday from the downed AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea and have identified the first victim from among the 162 people aboard the ill-fated jetliner.
Nine bodies have now been recovered from the Airbus A320-200 that went down Sunday on a two-hour flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore.
French crash investigators announced Thursday they would take a ship to the search area in an effort to locate the voice and data recorders from the Airbus A320-200.
Stormy weather has hampered the recovery effort in the Java Sea. But the French BEA, which stands for Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses and is comparable to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, will visit the search area with their Indonesian and Singaporean counterparts, according to a statement from BEA.
Investigators will bring hydrophones in an effort to detect pings from the recorders that have batteries certified to last 30 days in the water.
The jet's last communication indicated the pilots were worried about bad weather. They sought permission to climb above threatening clouds but were denied because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the airliner disappeared from the radar without issuing a distress signal.
A team of about 50 Indonesian navy divers were unable to fly out to warships at the scene of the disaster Wednesday night, according to naval officer Siahala Alamsyah.
The first seven bodies were recovered from an area off Borneo island, about 100 miles from the site where bodies were first spotted. Remains are being sent initially to Pangkalan Bun, the closest town, before being transported to Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city.
The body of passenger Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, who was the first victim identified, was turned over to her family at a brief ceremony at a police hospital in Surabaya, said Col. Budiyono of East Java's Disaster Victim Identification Unit. A family member cried as she put both hands on the dark polished casket that was topped with flowers.
After a Muslim cleric said a prayer for the deceased, the casket was immediately 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, and red flowers were sprinkled over the mound of wet dirt with a small white tombstone.
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Nearly all the passengers were Indonesian, and many were Christians of Chinese descent. The country is predominantly Muslim, but sizable pockets of people of other faiths are found throughout the sprawling archipelago.
Relatives of those aboard the aircraft have given blood for DNA tests and submitted photos of their loved ones, along with identifying information such as tattoos or birthmarks that could help make the process easier.
The long wait, with its starts and stops, has been frustrating for Sugiarti, 35. Her 40-year-old sister, Susiyah, was a nanny traveling to Singapore for a vacation with her employers and their 2-year-old daughter.
"I hope that they can find her body soon. I feel sorry for my sister because it has already been five days," she told reporters at a crisis center set up at a Surabaya police station. "I am trying very hard to be patient."
Some progress has been made in the search for the body of the downed aircraft. Singapore's navy sent in an unmanned underwater vehicle capable of surveying the seabed to try to help pinpoint the wreckage and the vital data recorders.
We are "focusing on finding the body of the plane," Indonesia air force spokesman Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto told reporters. "There was something like a dark shadow once seen from a plane, but it cannot yet be proven as wreckage."
So far, only a life jacket, an emergency exit door, an inflatable slide, children's shoes, a blue suitcase and backpacks filled with food have been found.
Indonesian equipment includes a minesweeper, a private survey ship that specializes in sea mapping and a vessel that can conduct 3-D imaging and detect pings from the black boxes. Aircraft capable of detecting metal also were deployed.
Sonar images have identified what appeared to be large parts of the plane.
"It's possible the bodies are in the fuselage," said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in Pangkalan Bun. "So it's a race now against time and weather."
The longer the search takes, the more bodies will decompose and the more debris will scatter.
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.
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Some of the passengers and crew aboard Flight 8501
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He said the bodies recovered so far "would have come out with a breach in the fuselage," he said. "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."
Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY; Associated Press
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