QZ8501 UPDATE DAY 7: Parts of crashed Air Asia plane found

File Photo (Dec 30): Members of the Search and Rescue Agency carry debris recovered from the sea from missing Indonesia Air Asia flight QZ 8501 at Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan

Photo: Reuters

UPDATE (11.35AM) Recovery teams have found two big parts of AirAsia Flight 8501, Indonesia’s top search official said.

The two objects are about 30m under water and located near an oil slick spotted Friday, said Basarnas chief Bambang Sulistyo

The larger of the objects was around 10m by five metres.

“With the discovery of an oil spill and two big parts of the aircraft, I can assure you these are the parts of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for,” Soelistyo told reporters in the capital Jakarta.

He said:

“As I speak, we are lowering an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) underwater to get an actual picture of the objects detected on the sea floor.
All are at the depth of 30 metres.”

A strong current, however, was making it difficult to operate the ROV.

Rough weather in recent days has hampered the search for bodies and the fuselage of the Airbus A320-200, which disappeared from radar and crashed into the sea during a storm.

Malaysian newspaper The Star quoted him saying that three vessels sent out to a sea area where the oil slick was spotted located the "two objects...that are close to each other".

One of the three vessels was Singapore's Navy ship RSS Persistence, he added.

So far 30 bodies have been recovered in the search, which had been narrowed Friday to 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.

Finding the plane’s black boxes is crucial to determining the cause of the crash. - AFP

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UPDATE (11.05AM): 

The AirAsia plane that crashed last weekend was flying on an unauthorised schedule, Indonesia’s transport ministry said on Saturday.

The ministry has since frozen the airline’s permission to fly the route.

Flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea with 162 people on board en route from Surabaya to Singapore early on Sunday.

The plane's flight time had not been cleared by officials, said director general of air transport Djoko Murjatmodjo.

He told AFP:

"It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that’s the problem.

"AirAsia’s permit for the route has been frozen because it violated the route permit given."

He said the permit would be frozen until investigations were completed.

A statement from transport ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said AirAsia was not permitted to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Sundays and had not asked to change its schedule.

File Photo: Air Asia Airbus A320 taxiing at the Changi Airport Terminal 1 on 21 September 2011. Credit: SPH

Search teams have narrowed their hunt for the plane’s fuselage and remaining bodies from the crash.

Rough weather has in recent days hampered the search for the plane, which is believed to be in relatively shallow water of around 25 to 32m.

- Source: AFP, via TNP

- See more at: http://www.tnp.sg/news/qz8501-update-day-7-parts-crashed-air-asia-plane-found#sthash.QWl7WnAK.dpuf