Families fear search for AirAsia QZ8501 dead may end

By Ainur Rohmah

JAKARTA

Families of the victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 have expressed fear that the search for the remaining bodies of those on board may be called off following the retrieval of both of the plane’s black boxes from the Java Sea.

The plane lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather Dec. 28 while flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Since then, the bodies of just 48 of the 162 people on board have been found.

Franky Chandra, a relative of one of the missing passengers, told Kompas.com Wednesday, "We hope [the search] will not be stopped. It's okay for them [authorities] to reduce search and rescue team personnel, as long as it does not stop the search."

Since the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were retrieved from the Karimata Strait over the last two days, relatives have been calling on President Joko Widodo – popularly known as “Jokowi” – to promise the search would continue.

Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency confirmed Wednesday that it will not stop the search, but replace the basic operation with daily operations.

Agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said basic search operations typically end on the seventh day of an accident, but elaborated that "this operation has been extended many times."

He added, however, that assistance from countries such as Russia and South Korea had been reduced as the search area narrowed.

With investigators beginning to download data from the two boxes, search teams in the Java Sea have intensified efforts to discover the fuselage, which is believed to hold the missing passengers.

Western Fleet commander First Admiral Widodo – who like many Indonesians uses only one name -- said army personnel would continue searching until they are ordered to do otherwise by Jokowi or another relevant authority.

"The commander ordered us to evacuate the main body of the plane. There are 114 victims who have not been found," said Admiral Widodo.

He refuted earlier reports that the boxes had been found underneath the wreckage of a wing, explaining that the parts found in the area – including seven-meter long iron plates – belonged to the engine.

Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Committee tasked with analyzing the black box data has promised to open the investigation’s results to the public.

"The results of the examination will be announced," the Committee’s head Tatang Kurniadi said, explaining that 70 percent of the search for the necessary plane parts had been completed with the recovery of the black boxes.

"The investigation aims to find what need to be fixed in [flight] systems, and why accidents might happen," he added.

Investigators are hoping that both will reveal clues as to the final minutes of Flight QZ8501. 

On Tuesday, the Indonesia subsidiary of AirAsia addressed claims that the airline did not have a license to fly the route the day flight crashed into the Java Sea and that it did not pick up a weather report prior to departure.

AirAsia Indonesia’s CEO Sunu Widyatmoko has said the airline had committed an administrative error in relation to licensing, telling parliament, "There was negligence by the administration whereby we [AirAsia] did not convey the slot proposed changes to the Air Transport Directorate of the Ministry of Transport."

He explained that the airline had only orally conveyed its proposal to change the Surabaya-Singapore flights from Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Sunu denied allegations that pilots had not been provided with weather information from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysic Agency on the day of the accident, explaining that the airline always received emails from the agency every six hours.

"AirAsia received an email blast every six hours from [agency]. That's what we used for flight data," he added, assuring the information had been included in the pilot's flight package.