Singapore says navy ship has located AirAsia fuselage

Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA TODAY6:38 a.m. EST January 14, 2015

(Photo: MOHAMMAD ALI, EPA)

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The main body of AirAsia Flight 8501 has been found in the Java Sea, Singapore's defense minister said Wednesday.

Ng Eng Hen said Singapore's chief of navy told him the plane's fuselage was located by one of the country's vessels, in a statement on Facebook.

He said images taken by a remotely operated vehicle show part of the aircraft's wing and words on the fuselage. The Indonesian search and rescue authority has been informed of the find, and can now begin recovery operations, he added.

Bambang Soelistyo, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue chief, said the fuselage was spotted by search teams on Tuesday, the BBC reported.

"The accident is a tragic event resulting in the loss of manylives," Ng said Wednesday. "I hope that with the fuselage located, some form of closure can come to the families of the victims to ease their grief."

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Photos from Ng Eng Hen - Defence... - Ng Eng Hen - Defence Minister | Facebook

On Tuesday Bambang told families that the search operations for the plane would soon be scaled back but that the effort to recover the bodies of victims will continue.

USA TODAY

Families told AirAsia search will be cut back

It came the same day divers retrieved the flight's cockpit voice recorder from the seafloor. The other black box — the data recorder — was previously brought to the surface, and both have been sent to Jakarta for study.

Military personnel hold the flight data recorder recovered from the an AirAsia jet as they place it into a protective case on Jan. 12 in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia. One hundred sixty-two people died on Dec. 28 when the jet crashed while on a flight from Surabaya to Singapore. (Photo: Pool photo by Adek Berry)

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Next Slide

Authorities hope the black boxes will help determine why the Singapore-bound jet plummeted into the Java Sea less than an hour out of Surabaya, Indonesia, amid heavy storms on Dec. 28. All 162 passengers and crew are presumed dead.

USA TODAY

Divers retrieve second AirAsia black box

On Saturday, the tail of the plane was lifted from the seafloor and taken to Pangkalan Bun, the nearest town, to be handed over to Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee for investigation.

AirAsia said 48 bodies have been recovered so far and 36 of the remains have been identified.

USA TODAY

Recorders should reveal details about doomed flight

The Indonesian Transport Ministry has said AirAsia did not have a license to fly the route on the day of the crash, a claim AirAsia Indonesia had vigorously disputed. In testimony this week before the Indonesian parliament, however, airline president Sunu Widyatmoko acknowledged that due to an "administrative mistake" the airline had only verbally proposed a schedule change to allow Sunday flights.

The airline has been banned from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route. The Transport Ministry has suspended scores of routes from other domestic airlines for similar alleged violations.

Contributing: John Bacon, USA TODAY

An Indonesian official said divers found both black boxes from AirAsia flight 8501 early Monday. The boxes could provide answers as to why the plane crashed into the Java Sea two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board. VPC