AirAsia crash: Plane tail raised from sea bed prior to inspecting it for black box recorders

The tail of the plane will be searched for the recorders to analyse flight data

The tail of the AirAsia plane after it was pulled out of the sea on 10 January 2015 (Reuters)

Search and rescue teams raised the tail of the AirAsia plane today and will inspect it for black box recorders to determine the cause of the crash nearly two weeks ago with 162 passengers on board.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather on 28 December less than half way into a two-hour flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore.

There were no survivors and 48 bodies, including at least two strapped to their seats, have been found in the Java Sea off the coast of Borneo. Most of the passengers on the plane were Indonesian.

The plane was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather, however air traffic controllers received no response when they granted permission for a rise to 34,000ft and the pilots did not issue a distress signal.

Indonesian search and rescue crews detected pings they believed were from the flight recorders yesterday and two teams of divers resumed the hunt soon after dawn today. The aircraft carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders - or black boxes - near its tail.

The tail of the crashed AirAsia plane being dragged out of the sea (Reuters)

The tail of the Airbus A320-200 was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea bed about 20 miles (30 km) from the plane’s last known location at a depth of about 100ft (30 metres). Crews brought it up from the bottom with the help of air bags.

“Yes, the tail is already on the surface,” Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort in Borneo.

“It’s currently being brought close to a ship and then it will be towed. And then they want to search for the black box.”

However, officials had said earlier it looked as if the recorders, which will be vital to the investigation into why the airliner crashed, had become separated during the disaster. The pings from the boxes will still be emitted for about 18 more days before the batteries go dead.

An image believed to be of wreckage of ill-fated AirAsia flight QZ8501 (BASARNAS/AFP/Getty)

“The divers looked for the black box but they didn’t find it,” Supriyadi said. “But it has to be checked again. Lifted and checked again.”

He said it could take up to 15 hours to tow the tail to land and sea conditions are hoped to be stable as previous searches for the aircraft wreckage and bodies of passengers were thwarted by strong winds, currents and high waves.

Supriyadi said yesterday that the pings were believed to have been detected about half a mile (1 km) away from the tail.

If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged.

While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor.