Four large metal objects belonging to the doomed AirAsia jet were found on Saturday in the choppy waters of the Java Sea as it emerged that the plane carrying 162 people on board was flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed. Multi-national searchers equipped with sophisticated acoustic equipment have been scouring the choppy waters to retrieve the bodies of victims and the debris as well as black box recorders of the Airbus 320.
“We’ve found four big parts from the plane we’re looking for,” Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency Basarnas, told reporters in Jakarta.
One large object was pinpointed by a ship searching during the night, he said, and three more, the largest of which was around 18 metres long, were located on the sea bed. Two objects were found at the bottom of the sea near Pangkalan Bun. One of the them was measured at 9.4 metres by 4.8 metres and a half-metre high. The other was 7.2 metres by a half metre.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian weather agency believes that bad weather was the biggest factor in the crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501. The BMKG agency said initial analysis suggested icy conditions in the air had caused the engine to stall.
The Indonesian authorities said AirAsia had violated the terms of licence for the Surabaya to Singapore route by flying on a Sunday.