Indonesia’s meteorological agency said on Sunday, that weather was the “triggering factor” in the crash of AirAsia flight 8501 with icing likely causing engine damage, as bad weather continued to hinder rescue efforts.
The Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea a week ago carrying 162 people from Indonesia’s second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers are hunting for the “black box” flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.
The search teams from several countries including the United States and Russia recovered another body on Sunday, bringing the total to 31.
They also found another major part of the aircraft to add to the four discovered on Saturday but rough seas again forced them to abandon their efforts early.
An initial report on the website of BMKG, Indonesia’s meteorological agency, suggested the weather at the time the plane went down sparked the disaster after it appeared to fly into storm clouds.
“Based on the available data received on the location of the aircraft’s last contact, the weather was the triggering factor behind the accident,” said the report.
“The most probable weather phenomenon was icing which can cause engine damage due to a cooling process. This is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of existing meteorological data.”
Search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said on Sunday that the dive teams managed to go into the water but visibility on the sea bottom was zero, with currents of three to five knots.
“For that reason, the diving efforts must be temporarily stopped. We’ll try to deploy an ROV (remotely-operated underwater vehicle),” he said.
He said the fifth major part of the plane, located early Sunday, was about 10m x 1m (33 x 3.3ft).
The search, focused on a patch of sea southwest of Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo, has also been extended east because parts of the plane may have been swept by currents, Soelistyo said.
The relief operation has prioritised finding the bodies of those on board the ill-fated flight, of whom 155 were Indonesian, with three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a Frenchman – co-pilot Remi Plesel.
