AirAsia QZ8501 fuselage retrieval problems continue

By Ainur Rohmah

JAKARTA

 Efforts to retrieve the fuselage of AirAsia QZ8501 ground to a halt for a third day Monday as strong currents and bad weather caused treacherous conditions for divers.

A salvage team attempted to lift the fuselage from the Java Sea early in the morning but had to abandon efforts at midday Indonesian time.

"The divers bound a sling to the fuselage but it could not be raised because of strong currents," the navy’s Western Fleet commander Widodo – who like many Indonesians uses only one name – was quoted as saying by Detik.com.

He explained that operations would continue Tuesday morning with teams planning to use a crane to lift the plane's body.

After weekend operations to lift the fuselage failed due to parts of lifting gear giving way, the National Search and Rescue Agency has announced that search teams will begin using additional slings and increasing the number of ropes from two to four.

SB Supriyadi, the agency’s director of operations, was quoted by Detik.com as saying Monday, "Because of the weight of the load and the condition of the aircraft, additional ropes are necessary."

"The condition of the fuselage is not perfect. It has been severely damaged inside the cabin," he added. "We need to examine whether there are still bodies trapped."

So far, 70 bodies have been retrieved.

After the fuselage section is successfully lifted, it will be transported on the Crest Onyx rescue ship to Pangkalan Bun -- the nearest town to the crash site -- and then Indonesia’s capital Jakarta. 

Amid ongoing inquiries into the Flight QZ8501 crash, Indonesia’s narcotics agency said Monday that a pilot from the carrier suspected of using drugs had tested negative.

Comr. Sr. Sumirat Dwiyanto, National Narcotics Agency spokesperson, told a press conference they had tested hair and urine samples belonging to an AirAsia Indonesia pilot who had been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for typhoid fever in late December.

“We have found that he was consuming a number of different drugs but his use is based on doctor’s order. This is not a drug abuse case,” the Antara news agency quoted Dwiyanto as saying.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea off the Indonesian island of Borneo on Dec. 28 last year, killing all 162 people on board as it flew from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore.

Investigators are analyzing data from the aircraft's two "black box" flight recorders to determine why it crashed. Terrorism has been ruled unlikely.

On Tuesday, Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said the flight had climbed at a rate outside the Airbus A320-200’s safety parameters immediately before it disappeared from radar.

The last contact with air traffic controllers was when the pilot asked to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet to avoid storm clouds.

The flight was denied immediate permission due to heavy air traffic in the area and four minutes later the plane disappeared.