The diving teams who made their way to the bottom of the sea Sunday encountered muddy waters with zero visibility, according to officials.
The Indonesian Navy has sent special equipment to try to tackle the muddy conditions, Indonesian military chief Gen. Moeldoko said Monday.
U.S. Navy divers assisting in the search have already been using side-scan sonar gear, which is designed to map the sea floor and capture accurate images for analysis.
When they find submerged wreckage, divers could also face challenges like “jagged edges, torn fuselage, things hanging all over the place,” said Geno Gargiulo, an experienced commercial diver in the United States.
“It’s going to be dark inside — a lot of things for a diver to get snagged on, for its umbilical to get caught up on, to get disoriented,” said Gargiulo, who says he’s helped in the aftermath of recent catastrophes, including the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Highlighting the complexity of the challenge, Moeldoko said Monday that one large piece of wreckage initially believed to be part of the aircraft turned out to actually be from a ship.
Objects obscured by waves
The ships and aircraft looking for remains from Flight QZ8501 have so far detected several large pieces of wreckage believed to be from the commercial jet, according to Indonesian officials.
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Suspension of flight route
AirAsia’s Indonesian affiliate, which operated Flight QZ8501, didn’t have a license to fly the Surabaya-to-Singapore route on the day that the plane disappeared, authorities said.
The airline was approved to fly the route four days a week but that did not include Sunday, Indonesia’s Ministry of Transport said as it announced a full investigation and suspended AirAsia Indonesia flights between the two cities.
AirAsia Indonesia has said it will cooperate fully with the investigation and would not be releasing any statement until the results were known, local media reported.
But aviation authorities in Singapore said there was no issue on their end. The Singapore Civil Aviation Authority said it had given AirAsia permission to fly the Surabaya-to-Singapore route daily through March 28.
It added that AirAsia was operating the flight four days a week, including Sundays, but that “airlines may adjust their flight frequencies in the course of a season in response to market demand or operational requirements.”
CNN’s Gary Tuchman, Elizabeth Joseph, Tim Schwarz, Ben Brumfield, Andrew Stevens, Alina Machado and Euan McKirdy contributed to this report. Journalist Yosef Riadi and translators Michelle Anugrah, Azieza Uhnavy and Edi Pangerapan also contributed.
