Indonesia vows \\\'all-out effort\\\' in search for AirAsia victims

January 02, 2015 00:00:00

SURABAYA: Family members of Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, first identified victim of the ill-fated Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501, watching as her remains are carried away from the police hospital here Thursday. — AFP

PANGKALAN BUN, Jan 1 (BSS/AFP): Indonesian rescuers promised an "all-out effort" to search for bodies from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 as the weather cleared Thursday and international investigators joined attempts to locate the fuselage of the ill-fated plane.

Seven bodies have so far been retrieved from the Airbus A320-200 carrying 162 people, which crashed Sunday in the sea near Borneo island en route from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore. Rough weather Wednesday had hampered efforts to locate and retrieve more bodies but conditions had since improved.

"The weather is clear today. We're making an all-out effort to search for bodies and locate the fuselage," search and rescue official Sunarbowo Sandi told AFP from Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.

He said foreign experts would join Indonesian transport safety investigators in the search to locate the wreckage and retrieve the black boxes, which are key to determining the cause of the crash.