SINGAPORE, January 3. /TASS/. Busy navigation in the area of a search for the wreck of an Indonesian AirAsia passenger jet is hindering the efforts to find the crashed plane’s flight recorders, local investigators said on Saturday.
“Constant sounds and motion - all this creates big disturbances for locating the flight recorders,” an investigator said.
On December 28, an AirAsia airliner A320-200 disappeared from radar screens about 40 minutes after its departure from Indonesia to Singapore, presumably crashing in the area of Kalimantan (Borneo) Island in the Java Sea off Indonesia. The jet was carrying 155 passengers and seven crewmembers.
By now, rescuers have found large pieces of the crashed plane’s wreck at a depth of 30 meters in the Java Sea, Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency Chief Bambang Soelistyo said.
At present, rescuers are reconnoitering the crashed plane’s area with remote control devices but big waves are impeding the operation, he said.
A team of divers, including from Russia, is ready to join the rescue operation, he said.
Russian Deputy Emergencies Minister Vladimir Stepanov has said over 160 rescuers are ready to go to Indonesia to join the search and rescue operation while 75 rescuers are already working in the area of the plane’s crash site.
“We have made plans for a total grouping of over 160 people, six planes and equipment to carry out the search in the area,” he said.
Two planes of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry have already arrived in Indonesia and Russian rescuers have joined the rescue effort, he said.