Tail section of AirAsia flight 8501 recovered without black boxes

Originally published on January 9, 2015

On Sunday, Indonesian search teams reported that a sonar scan may have pinpointed the fuselage of the missing AirAsia flight 8501, which crashed two weeks ago with the loss of all 162 people on board.

On Saturday, Indonesian search teams recovered a piece the jet’s tail section. Searchers located the vertical stabilizer and a portion of the fuselage belonging to the lost Airbus A320 on Wednesday, in the waters of Kumai, Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.

Divers attached and inflated airbags to bring the piece of the tail section to the ocean’s surface, then it was hauled aboard the tugboat Crest Onyx. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorders, generally known as “black boxes,” were not found together with the piece of the plane, leading investigators to conclude they detached when the plane crashed into the water.

The recovery of part of the tail is the first significant piece of wreckage from the plane to be found. Searchers believe the tail section should not be too far from the fuselage and therefore from the plane’s black boxes.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control during thundery weather on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.