AirAsia QZ 8501 Java Sea Crash, 4 Men 3 Women Evacuated, 1 Had Life-Jacket
AirAsia flight QZ8501 Java Sea crash search and rescue operations continued on Wednesday. On Tuesday, three corpses were found and rescue officers went down from helicopters to pull the bodies out of the water. Among the four men and the three women who have been evacuated, one of the women was wearing the distinctive bright red AirAsia flight attendant uniform. The first two bodies were placed in caskets with flowers and labeled '001' and '002' to be sent back to the airport in Sirabaya.
Indonesia's Chief of search and rescue Bambang Soelistyo was quoted by the national news agency Antara as saying, "Until now, we haven't found the plane," adding, "We've only found seven bodies to this day." On Wednesday, major search operations had to be stalled after bad weather conditions hit the area.
One of the women pulled out of the sea was wearing a life jacket suggesting there may have been some time before the plane went down, despite the absence of a ‘mayday’ distress call. The last words of the pilot was a request to climb to 38,000 ft, a steep flight that may have overstepped the capacity of the Airbus A320-200 in extreme weather.
Though choppers are not able to maneuver in harsh weather and divers have stopped looking for more debris and victims, ships are still searching the area, looking for bodies and the AirAsia aircraft blackbox. The AirAsia flight records are expected to unveil the mystery behind the plane disappearing from radar.
The uncensored footage of a body floating in the water caused anger among relatives of AirAsia QZ 8501 crash victims. Some of them were so distraught they had to be taken to hospitals after fainting. Finding 3 bodies Tuesday was the first sign that there was little hope for the rest of the 162 passengers and crew on board the ill-fated AirAsia QZ8501 two hour flight from Surabaya to Singapore’s Chiang Mi airport.
“Sonar equipment has been searching the bottom of the sea, tens of meters below the water's surface, according to SB Supriyadi, the search agency's director of operations,’ reported CNN.
"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501," AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted. He was quoted in reports as saying that AirAsia would compensate families for the mishap.
As experts try to unravel the mystery behind AirAsia QZ 8501, there were questions if the pilots were able to properly decipher their instruments due to poor weather. It is also possible that hail from thunderstones could have caused engine failure and some analysts have indicated that there is evidence of human error from the pilot’s.
