Rescue personnel who spotted first body at sea recounts his experience

PANGKALAN BUN, INDONESIA – Circling the rough waters off Kalimantan in a helicopter three days after AirAsia QZ8501 disappeared over the Java Sea, Second Sergeant Mahmud Junianto, part of the Indonesian Search-and-Rescue Agency (BASARNAS), thought he spotted an airplane door in the water.

The 24-year-old diver and four other unit mates had received instructions from a nearby military aircraft to move as quickly as possible towards what was suspected to be debris from the missing plane.

It was only after 2SG Mahmud rappelled down some 25m on a rope from the helicopter into the sea did he realise they had found the body of a woman.

“My first thought is, try to get the body as soon as possible,” he said. “She could still be alive.”

For the next 20 minutes, he struggled desperately against four-metre waves to reach the body. Failing to do so, he plunged into the sea and swam towards the body in vain. “Every time I tried to retrieve the body, another wave would toss it away,” he said.

Fearing for his safety, his fellow crew eventually pulled him back on board. An Indonesian warship later recovered the body, which was subsequently brought to Pangkalan Bun and flown back to Surabaya for identification.

Unknown to 2SG Mahmud at the time, the body was the first victim to be recovered from the AirAsia flight which went down en route to Singapore.

Since Tuesday, he and his fellow divers have battled rain, strong winds and rough seas in a race against time to recover bodies and wreckage.

The work is strenuous: While Search-And-Rescue (SAR) personnel such as 2SG Mahmud are allocated shifts, the length of each shift is unpredictable and divers are constantly on standby for instructions from pilots. The monsoon winds and rains leave SAR personnel only short windows of calm weather to recover bodies and debris.

Nonetheless, with the combined efforts of Indonesian and foreign militaries, search and locate efforts have made some progress since Tuesday and 30 bodies have been found and sent to Surabaya so far, according to authorities at Pangkalan Bun.

2SG Mahmud, who was taking a break at Pangkalan Bun’s airport when TODAY spoke to him, said even as a seasoned diver – he joined BASARNAS in 2010 – he found the conditions on Java sea “extreme” for search operations. The waves – which have reached as high as 5m high – had pushed him to his physical and technical limits, he said.

“I have retrieved dead bodies at least once every year, but they are usually inland, in the rivers,” said the Kalimantan native. “This is my first time in an open sea.”

But the SAR divers understood the urgency of their mission, he said.

“I feel sad whenever I see a body, because it is someone’s child, husband, wife, or relative,” he said. “But the most important task is to evacuate it quickly. To the families of the victims, I am sorry. You must stay strong.”