Divers search inside sunken AirAsia jet fuselage for bodies

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia – Indonesian navy divers plunged into the sea at dawn today to examine a large chunk of the AirAsia jet’s fuselage, aiming to bring bodies believed to be trapped inside to the surface, the director of the search and rescue agency said.

The day before, a Singaporean navy ship had spotted the 100-foot-long section of the plane body with a wing attached on the bottom of the Java Sea. Rescuers believe that most of the bodies of the 162 people on board are inside.

Images taken by a remote-controlled vehicle from the ship showed parts of the plane’s wing and words on the fuselage, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said on his Facebook page.

So far, only 50 bodies have been recovered from the Dec. 28 crash less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Most of the victims are Indonesian.

At least 15 divers descended to the seabed at a depth of 92 feet Wednesday morning to examine wreckage, calculate its weight and search for bodies inside, said Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the operation director at the National Search and Rescue Agency.

When corpses are found, the divers will try to put them in individual body bags, which rescuers on ships will then hoist to the surface, he said.

He said it appeared that some parts of the fuselage have been covered with silt.

The plane’s “black boxes” – the flight data recorder and cockpit flight recorder – were retrieved Monday and Tuesday. They will be key to learning what caused the plane to crash. Bad weather is a suspected factor.

Nine aircraft and 12 ships were involvied in the search operation today, including two U.S. ships and one each from Singapore and China.