(Reuters) — Families of passengers on board missing Air Asia flight struggled to cope with their grief on Tuesday (December 30), after rescuers found wreckage and bodies in the sea off the coast of Borneo.
Indonesia AirAsia’s flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday (December 28) during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency confirmed the debris was from the plane. The navy said 40 bodies had been recovered as dusk fell.
The plane has yet to be found and there was no word on the possibility of any survivors.
Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing gathered at a crisis center in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands. Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away, a Reuters reporter said.
“You have to be strong,” the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, said as she comforted relatives, “They are not ours, they belong to God.”
A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests.
AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes, who has been in Indonesia since the plane went missing, said he was rushing back to Surabaya.
“My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501,” he tweeted, “on behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am.”
About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States had been involved in the search of up to 10,000 square nautical miles.
The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said.
