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Search team to float AirAsia fuselage

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 24 Jan 2015, 9:24PM
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

Search team to float AirAsia fuselage

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 24 Jan 2015, 9:24PM

Salvage teams have begun an operation to raise the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 from the sea bed.

The bid comes a day after divers were able to enter the main section of the jet for the first time, leading to the recovery of four more bodies.

Difficult weather had prevented rescuers reaching the primary wreckage of the Airbus A320-200 since it was spotted by a military vessel earlier this month.

"We have begun the operation today to lift the main body and we hope we can float it today," rescue agency official S.B. Supriyadi said on Saturday.

Just after dawn, divers had begun their decent to tie flotation bags to the fuselage, said Rasyid Kacong, the navy official overseeing the lifting operation.

Unfortunately the ropes snapped before reaching the surface but "we are now trying again and it is in the process", Kacong said.

Four bodies believed to have come from inside the fuselage were retrieved as the team tried to lift the main section, bringing the total recovered to 69, officials said.

The previous day, a jumble of wires and seats floating inside the fuselage prevented the divers from entering further to find more bodies.

"They said it was dark inside, the seats where floating about and the wires were like a tangled yarn," Supriyadi said.

The rescuers hope once the fuselage is lifted, it will be easier to inspect the inside of the main body and retrieve more bodies, he added.

The jet's black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - were recovered last week, and investigators are analysing them.

Flight QZ8501 went down in the Java Sea on December 28 in stormy weather, during what was supposed to be a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were 162 people on board.

 

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