REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PANGKALAN BUN -- A Russian search and rescue team has not yet located the black box of the ill-fated AirAsia aircraft that crashed in the Karimata Strait waters, Central Kalimantan, on December 28, 2014, a Russian official stated.
Lieutenant General Eduard Chizhikov, the chief military expert of the Russian Ministry for Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disaster, stated here on Tuesday that the rescue team searched for the black box through air and sea operations but has yet to locate it.
"Russian divers yesterday searched for the black box, and this morning, they did the same thing but found nothing. Now, we are waiting for directives from the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) for the next search area," Chizhikov remarked.
He noted that the Russian search and rescue team with 22 divers arrived in Indonesia on January 2, 2015, to help the Indonesian rescue team to search for the black box and remains of the passengers from the ill-fated AirAsia QZ8501 flight.
The AirAsia flight vanished from radar on Dec 28, 2014, while flying from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore with 155 passengers and seven crew members on board.
The bodies and plane debris have been recovered in the waters close to Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan, as recovery efforts continue amid rough weather conditions in the Java Sea.
The latest disappearance and subsequent crash of the AirAsia aircraft has prompted aviation experts to renew their call to change the process of tracking commercial jetliners.
Basarnas Chief Rear Marshal F. Henry Bambang Soelistyo noted that two Russian aircraft have arrived to assist in the search for the victims.
"Today, we received Russia's assistance in the form of two aircraft," Soelistyo revealed here on Saturday.
He noted that one of the Russian aircraft is capable of landing on water.
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