Finally: Conditions for the search and recovery of lost AirAsia Flight 8501 have improved enough for divers to spot the tail of the plane. It has been located about 20 miles from the craft's last known location and resting at the bottom of the Java Sea. This is particularly promising news because if it is the right side of the tail, then the black box will likely be recovered with it. That recovery is crucial in helping investigators understand exactly what happened in the final moments of the doomed flight.
"We've found the tail that has been our main target," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, said at a news conference in Jakarta.
The tail was identified by divers after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, Soelistyo said. He displayed underwater photographs showing partial lettering on the sunken object compared with a picture of an intact Airbus A320-200 in AirAsia livery.
"I can confirm that what we found was the tail part from the pictures," he said, adding that the team "now is still desperately trying to locate the black box," according to a report by Reuters.
So far, monsoon-like rain and minimal visibility has made recovering the bodies of the 162 passengers who were on board difficult, and divers have been frustrated to know that they are so close yet have not been able to fully do their job.
There is still a theory that this plane may have actually made a fairly successful water landing and then sank quickly. Are you buying in to that idea at all, or do you think it likely fell from the sky and broke apart on impact?
Let us know what you think about the tragedy in the comments section below.
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