Indonesia's military chief believes a search and rescue team has found part of the body of a Lion Air plane that crashed into the sea with 189 people on board, he told a television channel on Wednesday (Oct 31).
"We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage of JT610," Hadi Tjahjanto told TV One, referring to the flight operated by the Indonesian budget carrier.
The search team had the location coordinates but now had to confirm it was the fuselage, he added.
This map shows where search and rescue crews are focusing their efforts today, in relation to where #JT610 lost contact https://t.co/iOAMgluv4s pic.twitter.com/CirE265ts3
— Jack Board (@JackBoardCNA) 31 October 2018
Indonesian media reporting that location of main body of crashed #LionAir aircraft has been determined, using ping locator and sonar search. This will be crucial to retrieving the black box https://t.co/iOAMgluv4s pic.twitter.com/0HosPR8tVy
— Jack Board (@JackBoardCNA) 31 October 2018
Indonesia has deployed "pinger locators" to try to locate the plane's blackboxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, at the crash site.
"Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 metres depth," Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters.
"This morning, at 5am, the team has gone back to dive at the location."
The development comes as Boeing officials are to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane maker's 737-MAX jets.
So far there is not a single body identified from #JT610 crash, officials say. Family members continue to come today to assist with DNA process. Police hospital now providing trauma healing on site https://t.co/iOAMglM6t2 #LionAir pic.twitter.com/NeSS5uvb5d
— Jack Board (@JackBoardCNA) 31 October 2018
DNA TESTING UNDERWAY
Jakarta police hospital chief Dr Musyafak told a news conference on Wednesday that 191 families have so far reported that they have family members who are victims of the flight JT610 crash.
Dr Musyafak added that out of the 191 families, 147 have provided DNA samples for identification purposes. He also appealed for more family members to come forward.
He said Indonesian authorities have received 48 body bags and that all of them contain body parts.
The forensic team comprise more than 15 forensic doctors, more than 10 forensic dentists and four DNA experts.
Several postmortems have been conducted but none of the remains have been identified so far, Dr Musyafak added.
Apart from DNA identification, authorities will likely require fingerprints, dental records as well as information on secondary marks like tattoos or if they wear rings.
"If it is possible, we will try to sew the bodies," he added.
Indonesian authorities are also providing family members with grief counselling.
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