Air Asia Indonesia Flight OZ 8501 Update: (As of Jan 12 2015)

Surabaya – Entering the sixteenth day, the SAR operations led by the National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) Republic of Indonesia has made a breakthrough with the recovery of QZ 8501 aircraft’s Flight Data Recorder (FDR) at 07:11 HRS LT (GMT+7) today.

BASARNAS confirmed that the FDR was found under the plane’s wing wreckage and has been lifted from the seafloor (up to 30 meters below surface). The FDR will be transferred to Jakarta, and handed over to Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) for investigation. BASARNAS reported that the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) has yet to be located and is still being searched around the area.

In addition, sea divers from SAR team were deployed today to obtain visual confirmation of two large objects which are suspected to be parts of the aircraft, approximately 4km from the location where the tail piece was found.

BASARNAS also assured that passengers recovery remains to be the main priority. Local fishermen have been asked to support SAR operation on a smaller scale. No additional recoveries were reported today.

In Surabaya, the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Police Department of Republic of Indonesia (DVI POLRI) today announced that they were able to identify 2 more remains, identified as: David Gunawan (male) and Youvita Elisabeth (female). Both are Indonesian citizens.

To date, BASARNAS has confirmed to have recovered a total of 48 remains of which 34 have been identified by DVI POLRI and 14 are still being identified.

AirAsia Indonesia would like to take this opportunity to urge the public seeking progress on the search and evacuation and identification process of QZ 8501 passengers to refer solely to official information from BASARNAS and DVI POLRI.

You may also obtain substantiated information only from authorised AirAsia social media accounts: Facebook (www.facebook.com/AirAsia) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/AirAsia).

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and friends of our passengers and colleagues on board QZ 8501.