Tail of crashed AirAsia plane lifted from sea in search for black boxes

JAKARTA (Xinhua) - The tail section of crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 was hoisted from the Java Sea off Indonesia' s Central Kalimantan coast on Saturday as weather condition in the search area improved.  

Footage of the TV One channel showed the tail, partially buried in the seabed 30 meters underwater, was lifted to the surface by floating balloons.

The salvaged part of the Airbus A320-200 was loaded on the Crest Onyx towing ship operated by Indonesia's oil and gas regulator agency SKK Migas.  

Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) operational director Suryadi B. Supriyadi said visual check on the tail to seek the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as black boxes, would be conducted in the command post in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.

"It would be brought here for further investigation," Supriyadi told Xinhua by phone, adding that there was no immediate report from the Crest Onyx.

TV reports said the trip to Pangkalan Bun would take seven to 10 hours from the location where the tail was found on Wednesday.

Military Commander General Moeldoko believed the black boxes, which were stored in the rear part of the AirAsia plane, were still in their places as ping signals detected by the Indonesian research ship Jadayat were weakening amid the lifting up process.

"I believe that it is still in the tail section. The ping signals were weakening at around 10 a.m. Due to that I withdrew my divers and told them to standby," Moeldoko was quoted as saying by local media.

The black boxes, which are crucial to helping determine the cause of the air crash, can still send signals for two weeks before the battery goes dead. Efforts to raise the tail have been hampered by bad weather, including strong undersea currents.  

Flight QZ8501, with 162 people aboard, went down in the Java Sea near the Karimata Strait during its flight from Surabaya to Singapore on Dec. 28.

So far, 48 bodies have been recovered from the sea, with 27 of them having been identified.