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AirAsia jet tail found

January 7, 2015

Indonesian search authorities say they have found the tail of AirAsia flight 8501 in the Java Sea. The tail usually holds the black box flight data recorders, key to revealing why the plane went down.

https://p.dw.com/p/1EFwt
A crewmember of an Indonesian Air Force Super Puma helicopter of the 6th Air Squadron uses binoculars to scan the horizon during search operations for victims of AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 over the Java Sea on January 1, 2015.
Image: Dewi Nurcahyani/AFP/Getty Images

Search teams scouring the Java Sea for parts of an AirAsia Airbus with a remote-operated submarine announced on Wednesday that they had located a crucial piece of the wreckage.

"We have successfully obtained part of the plane that has been our target. The tail portion has been confirmed found," search and rescue chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta, adding that the team was still "desperately" trying to locate the black box data recorders.

AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes said on Twitter that the airline's priority was still to find all parts of the plane and all on board "to ease the pain on our families."

AirAsia flight 8501 was en route from Surabaya in eastern Indonedia to Singapore on Sunday December 28 when it disappeared over the Java Sea.

The wreckage of the crashed plane was found days later but bad weather has hampered efforts to find more parts of the plane and recover the bodies of the 162 passengers and crew. All on board were killed.

se/gb (AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP)

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