After 10 days of searching, recovery teams have made patchy progress in locating the wreckage and recovering the bodies of people on board the doomed AirAsia flight. Here is what we know so far.
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THE FLIGHT
At 5.35am, Sunday December 28, 2015 AirAsia flight QZ8501 took off.
At 6.12am the pilot, Iriyanto, requested permission to turn and climb to avoid a storm.
At 6.17am the plane lost radio contact with the Jakarta air traffic control, and at 6.18am it disappeared off the radar.
At 7.55am the plane was officially declared missing.
162 people were on board: 155 passengers and seven crew. They included 155 Indonesians and one from each of Singapore, Britain, Malaysia and France (the co-pilot) and three from South Korea.
At 10.22am Indonesian search and rescue authorities launched their operation.
THE SEARCH
Search areas: There are six overlapping search areas that encompass about 22,000 square nautical miles, or 75,000 square kilometres of the Karimata Strait and eastern java Sea. They are labelled I, II, III, IV, and as well as the "Underwater Search Area" and the "Most Probable Area" where bodies are expected to be found. The most likely location of the fuselage of the jet is about 90 nautical miles off the coast of Borneo.
Number of bodies recovered: 37 (as of January 5)
Number of objects found : Many small pieces of floating debris on the surface, including plane doors, life jackets and safety slides. Underwater, a large piece of the tail was found on Wednesday. AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes tweeted that if it was the correct part of the tail section, it would contain the crucial "black box" that would give investigators clues as to what caused the plane to crash.
I am led to believe the tail section has been found. If right part of tail section then the black box should be there. — Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes)
January 7, 2015
Four other large objects detected by sonar (the largest 18m long) which investigators believe are parts of the fuselage of the plane. They were detected within 100 to 200m of each other. They are in about 29 to 30m of water, so accessible by divers.
Number of ships involved: This varies day by day, but on January 5 was was 59, of which the bulk were from Indonesia.
Number of aircraft involved: Again it varies but 12 helicopters and eight fixed wing aircraft.
Number of divers: 42 divers from the Indonesian search and rescue agency Basarnas, 47 Indonesian navy frogmen, 17 Russian divers.
Countries involved: Australia's job is done and its Orion returned to base, but Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia have warships in the water, Russia has sent divers, underwater remote operated vehicles, drones, amphibious heavy lift aircraft; France has sent a "pinger locator" to look for the "black box" and the US Seventh fleet has two ships, the Sampson and the Fort Worth actively involved. A USS Sampson Seahawk helicopter has done much work ferrying bodies to the command base in Pangkalan Bun, and a US liaison officer is stationed there.
Reasons for slow progress: Bad weather on the surface — waves up to 6 metres at times, according to search and rescue vessel captain Adil Triyanto. This is the intertropical convergence zone, with volatile and violent weather. Underwater conditions are at least as hazardous. Currents of up to 5-10 knots stir up mud and other sediments making visibility almost zero. A combination of waves atop and current below makes launching divers and equipment (side-along sonar, pinger locator, robotic vehicles) into the water difficult, and once they are there, poor visibility means they cannot see much, if anything. Navy diver Tirta Yasa says "you can't see your hand in front of your face".
THE VICTIMS (as at January 6)
Number of bodies recovered: 40, some still strapped to their seats.
Number identified and returned to families: 16. The first to be identified was Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, 47, an elementary school teacher from Surabaya.
Number found but not identified: 21
Identification process: The disaster victims identification team, based at the police hospital in Surabaya, has three primary methods of identification, at least one of which — dental records, fingerprints or DNA — must be satisfied for a positive identification. Secondary methods include clothing, jewellery, scars or marks on the body, identification documents and facial recognition by a family member.
The longer a body stays in the water, the harder it is to identify. Anton Atilangi, the head of the identification team in Pangkalan Bun says that, after five to seven days in the water, fingerprints have worn off and facial features are difficult to recognise. This leaves dental records — and not all Indonesians have them — and DNA. DNA is accurate but takes up to two weeks. Most relatives of victims have given a DNA sample for matching.
THE CRASH INVESTIGATION
What we know: The pilot was trying to avoid a storm cell but the plane disappeared just minutes after he made the request to climb.
What is possible: The storm forced the plane down. Leaked radar data (disputed by some analysts) shows the Airbus climbing at a precipitous 6000 to 9000 feet per minute, then dropping even more quickly, at up to 24,000 feet per minute. This may have been due to an extremely powerful tropical weather system. Ground speed was very low, which can induce the engines to stall.
What we don't know: Whether ice, water in the engines, pilot error or equipment failure, or some combination of the above, was involved.
How will we find out: Examination of the flight recorder, Mode S radar data, cockpit voice recorder and airline fuselage. The battery on the voice recorder lasts about 30 days, after which it will stop "pinging" its location.
INDONESIAN GOVERNMENT RESPOSE
The Minister for Transport, Ignasius Jonan, on Friday suspended AirAsia's licence to fly the Surabaya to Singapore route, saying they were only authorised to fly on four days a week, not including Sundays. AirAsia and the Singapore authorities insist that, as far as they were concerned, there was permission. The Indonesian government has launched a probe into other airlines to see if they are violating their licences. And Indonesia's fearsome anti-corruption agency, KPK, has been tasked to find out if the issuing of AirAsia's flying permit was "subject to maladministration or corruption".
The ministry has announced it will make a physical weather briefing mandatory before each flight. Pilots say they now download weather information from the internet, and a physical briefing will be a waste of time.
AIRASIA RESPONSE
Chief executive Tony Fernandes has got on the front foot. He appeared at Surabaya airport to answer questions from the victims' families; he apologised and said he would cooperate with the investigation; the company has guaranteed compensation to victims' families; the company has been paying relocation of bodies and funeral expenses.
He has praised his pilot, expressed full confidence in his fleet and his crew, and blamed "very unique" weather for the crash.
He has regularly retweeted messages of support to the company from its customers.
One of many messages our guests, what we call passangers have been sending us. Thank you all our guests. Love tony.
pic.twitter.com/f1xWgopb9x — Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes)
January 2, 2015
He has promised ongoing passengers "business as usual", saying AirAsia would keep operating.