JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian Navy divers, thwarted for days by bad weather, began recovering bodies on Thursday from the sunken fuselage of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea last month, killing all 162 people aboard.
A total of 115 victims remain unaccounted for since the plane, Flight 8501, crashed on Dec. 28 less than an hour after taking off from the Indonesian city of Surabaya, bound for Singapore.
As of Thursday, forensic experts had identified 47 of 53 victims whose bodies, or body parts, had been recovered, Indonesian officials said.
–
Mr. Tatang said the comments made by the transportation minister were based not on data from the black boxes, but on the ground radar.
The voice cockpit recorder picked up warning sirens during the flight’s final minutes, Reuters has reported.
Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, which is evaluating data from the plane’s black boxes, must complete a preliminary report by Wednesday, but it will not be released publicly, Mr. Tatang said.
