REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PANGKALAN BUN -- Chief of the National Defense Forces (TNI) Gen. Moeldoko has vowed to support the thorough search for the bodies of victims and the black box of the Air Asia plane that crashed.
"We will try our best to recover the bodies of victims that are still missing. We were focused on the tail section, so the other sections of the aircraft have yet to be found," he told the press at the Iskandar Airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, on Saturday (10/1).
He could not confirm whether the black box of AirAsia flight QZ8501 was in its tail section, which was successfully lifted from the seabed on Saturday.
"I cannot confirm whether the black box was in the tail section. It is for the KNKT (National Transportation Safety Committee) to report," he pointed out.
Quoting a report from Chief of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) F. H. Bambang Soelistyo, Moeldoko stated that there was a pinger locator that could receive signals from the black box.
If strong signals were received, the diving teams aboard navigation vessel KN Jadayat and warship KRI Banda Aceh would be deployed to the scene, he affirmed.
TNI personnel were also ready to assist in the search for the fuselage of the Airbus 320-200 plane, which is believed to have been torn apart, the military chief revealed.
The ill-fated aircraft's tail section was discovered by a number of divers of the Indonesian Navy on January 7, but was successfully retrieved from the seabed using lifting balloons tied to it on Saturday, Soelistyo affirmed.
Once it was retrieved, the tail section was handed over to the KNKT, he added.
Search efforts to recover bodies of the victims and spot the fuselage of the aircraft have been hampered by bad weather and high waves since the day the passenger jet crashed.
The airplane crashed with 162 people on board on December 28.
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