By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA, Indonesia
The Indonesian military has ceased operations to recover AirAsia Flight QZ8501 after days of failed attempts to lift a fuselage section from the Java Sea, where divers will continue searching for the bodies of victims.
"We deeply apologize to the families of the victims," the navy’s Western Fleet commander Widodo -- who like many Indonesians uses only one name -- was quoted as saying Tuesday by Detik.com.
Operations to lift the damaged fuselage had failed since the weekend due the slings and ropes of the lifting gear giving way.
Explaining that operations Tuesday did not go smoothly as strong currents prevented effective diving, he said, "We had already linked the fuselage with rope yesterday, but its position changed this morning."
Expressing that search teams deployed in the Karimata Strait had done all they could to retrieve the bodies and the fuselage, Widodo grieved that the bodies of only 70 of the 162 victims had been recovered.
"We've been checking from the ridge part of the wing forward through 10 meters, [but there were] no bodies at all," he added.
Despite the military withdrawing its warships, AirAsia’s Department of Safety announced Tuesday that it would coordinate with the National Search and Rescue Agency in diving efforts to find the dead.
Dono Sukoco, an official from the department, said that although he could not provide exact details, the deployment of divers was "very possible."
Meanwhile, the families of victims have expressed concerns that efforts to recover the remaining bodies might be called off.
Imam Sampurno, a relative of one of the missing, told Detik.com that AirAsia had "promised to find volunteer divers" to continue the search.
In an interview with CNN, Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the country would undertake measures to improve the regulatory system of its aviation industry.
"But the [reform] of system administration is not related to the airline accidents," he said.
"The accident could be due to the weather, it could be due to human error or any other reason. We're not sure about it now," Jokowi added.
A preliminary report is set to be released this week, a month after Flight QZ8501 crashed off the Indonesian island of Borneo on Dec. 28 as it flew from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, to Singapore.
Investigators are analyzing data from the aircraft's two "black box" flight recorders to determine why it crashed. Terrorism has been ruled unlikely.
Last week, Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said the flight had climbed at a rate outside the Airbus A320-200’s safety parameters immediately before it disappeared from radar.
The last contact with air traffic controllers was when the pilot asked to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet to avoid storm clouds.
The flight was denied immediate permission due to heavy air traffic in the area and four minutes later the plane disappeared.
www.aa.com.tr/en
