Divers have located the tail of the plane
Search teams that have been assigned to the case of the crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 have found the tail of the plane. This is where the vital black box recorders are contained according to Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.
Bambang Soelistyo, the chief of Basarnas, Indonesia's search and rescue agency, informed reporters in Jakarta that the tail of the plane has been found in the Java Sea.
"We have successfully obtained part of the plane that has been our target. The tail portion has been confirmed found," he said.
AirAsia group chief executive Tony Fernandes posted on his on his Twitter account following the announcement.
"I am led to believe the tail section has been found. If right part of tail section then the black box should be there," he tweeted.
"We need to find all parts soon so we can find all [our] guests to ease the pain of our families. That still is our priority."
The Flight had 162 people on board when it crashed into the water just off Borneo Island on December 28th around 40 minutes into its 2 hour flight time after departing from Surabaya and heading for Singapore.
Despite the help of many countries, the poor weather conditions have prevented much progress.
Forty bodies and debris have been recovered from the water’s surface off Borneo; however the strong winds have hindered the divers’ progress to recover larger pieces of the wreckage found by sonar on the sea floor.
The search for the rest of the wreckage has covered about 90 miles off Borneo. Ships have found five large objects on the ocean floor that are believed to be other parts of the plane- the largest measures at 18 meters long.
Air Marshal Soelistyo confirmed that 21 objects had been located, however he did not say whether these were parts of the aircraft or not. The tail section most recently identified was found far away from the other objects found.
"It wasn't found in the area that was mentioned in the media the other day," he said.
Tagged in Planes