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AirAsia crash: Tail section of jet located
The tail area of the aircraft houses the crucial black box flight recorders, which are still to be located
Image captured by a remote operated vehicle of the aircraft
Search teams looking for underwater wreckage from a crashed AirAsia passenger jet have located the tail of the aircraft, the section where the crucial black box flight recorders are housed, Indonesia's search and rescue agency chief said on Wednesday.
The Airbus A320 disappeared on 28 December with 162 people on board as the jet flew from Surabaya to Singapore. The pilot had requested a course change due to bad weather just before contact was lost, officials have said. 40 bodies have been recovered so far.
There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.
The bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have prevented divers from reaching larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.
"We've found the tail that has been our main target today," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of the search and rescue agency, told a news conference in Jakarta.
The tail had been identified using an underwater remote operated vehicle, Soelistyo said, adding that the team "now is still desperately trying to locate the black box".
