Recent reports from Indonesia confirm AirAsia Flight 8501's recovery operation has been suspended after failing to secure the fragile fuselage of the aircraft twice. 30 days after the Airbus 320-200 aircraft crashed into the Java Sea, the Indonesian military has reportedly ended the search for victims from the AirAsia wreckage at the bottom of the sea.
Rear Adm. Widodo said in a Reuters report, "We apologize to the families of the victims. We tried our best to look for the missing victims."
Flight QZ8501 disappeared from radar screens after taking off from Surabaya to Singapore on Dec. 28.
Indonesian military divers battled strong under currents and cloudy water 100 feet below the Java Sea before giving up efforts to bring up the AirAsia QZ 8501 fuselage. The New York Times confirmed that no bodies were found inside the fuselage after the search and rescue was completed.
Initially Indonesian authorities believed most of the bodies would be in the AirAsia fuselage, but military officials said there was no point in bringing up wreckage that did not contain bodies of victims. The latest count of victims found from the AirAsia jet crash is 70. The plane had 162 persons on board when it plunged into the sea.
It is likely that a preliminary report of the AirAsia crash will ensue later this week as Indonesian law requires a post-30 day period to publish findings by investigators. A thorough investigation is expected in approximately a year, the timeline for an accident report to be filed is 30 days after an accident in Indonesia. Previous reports had said that an initial report would be released by the military.
Bad weather may have been a cause for the crash since the plane's captain made an odd request to climb to 38,000. ft. according to experts.
The transport minister, Ignasius Jonan, told the Indonesian parliament earlier this week that radar data showed the plane was climbing at an abnormally high rate, then dropped rapidly and disappeared. "No distress signal was sent," he said in a report from The Guardian.
Officials of the National Transportation Safety Committee said they did not believe there was any foul play involved. Examination of the flight recorders said that there was no loud noises heard, and there was no threat of any terrorist activity on the ill-fated AirAsia 8501.
An analysis of the flight recorder and the cockpit voice recorder retrieved from the Java Sea will reveal the exact cause of the accident and how the crew responded. A check for dangerous defects and system problems will also be a priority in the final investigation of the AirAsia QZ 8501 crash.
