Efforts to lift AirAsia fuselage fail

PANGKALAN BUN — Two attempts to lift the fuselage of crashed AirAsia jetliner QZ8501 failed over the weekend. The wreckage sank back to the ocean floor yesterday when a rope linking the lifting balloons broke. Rescuers managed to retrieve one body during the operation.

Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir said yesterday’s strong currents was the main obstacle. The rope had been fastened and linked to a ship, but broke again as the fuselage was lifted. “We could not fight against nature,” he said. “We hope the weather would change and be conducive.”

In an attempt on Saturday, rescuers lifted the fuselage near to the water’s surface before it sank back to the ocean floor when the lifting balloons deflated.

However, four bodies were discovered around the area where divers struggled with strong currents and poor visibility, said Mr Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the operations chief at the National Search and Rescue Agency.

Media reports said on Saturday that the fuselage was lifted to about 7m from the surface before some of the balloons failed.

Based on a sonar scan, Mr Supriyadi said, the cockpit was suspected to be about 500m from the fuselage at a depth of 30m and that the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot might be inside.

Passengers’ belongings, including an iPhone with headphones still attached, as well as aircraft parts such as seat cushions and tables, floated out as the fuselage was being lifted on Saturday.

Divers were able to enter the fuselage for the first time on Friday and retrieved six bodies. Wires and seats floating inside the fuselage stopped divers from entering the main section to find more bodies.

Seventy bodies have been retrieved from Flight QZ8501, which crashed on Dec 28 with 162 people on board while flying from Surabaya to Singapore. Investigators are analysing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders with advisers from Airbus, the plane’s manufacturer.

The head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, who said that a full analysis of what went wrong could take up to a year, has ruled out sabotage and added that a preliminary report will be submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization this week. AP