Jakarta: Debris spotted today during an aerial search for AirAsia flight QZ8501 is from the missing plane, Indonesia’s director general of civil aviation told AFP.
“For the time being it can be confirmed that it’s the AirAsia plane and the transport minister will depart soon to Pangkalan Bun,” Djoko Murjatmodjo said.
Seventeen of the passengers were children. There were no Indian nationals on board.
During a news conference by the head of the operation, shown live on Indonesian TV, pictures of the debris were shown including a body floating on the water. Relatives of passengers on the plane watching the pictures were visibly shocked.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes, who is an ethnic Indian, tweeted to the families: “My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences.”
All resources were now being sent to the area where the debris was found, and all objects or bodies found would be taken to Pangkalan Bun, Soelistyo said, referring to a nearby town in Central Kalimantan province.
Soelistyo said that ships with more sophisticated technology were being deployed to check whether larger parts of the plane were submerged beneath the debris.
At least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters had joined the search for the AirAsia flight that went missing on Sunday morning after taking off from Surabaya in eastern Java on its way to Singapore.
The multinational operation, led by Indonesia, was joined by Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, with other offers for help from countries like India, South Korea, China and France. The US destroyer USS Sampson was also on its way to the zone as the discovery was found.
Earlier, several sightings, including something that resembled oil spill east of Belitung island, turned out to be false alarms.
The search by Indonesian Air Force planes spotted two pools of possible oil slick yesterday but these were later determined to be shadows from underwater coral.
The search area, originally divided into seven sectors, was today expanded to 13, covering air, sea and land.
(AFP)
