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AirAsia fuselage found in Java Sea, officials say

The plane carrying 162 people disappeared from radar on Dec. 28 less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

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Pius Erlangga/REUTERS
A journalist takes a photograph of an image believed to be of the fuselage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 taken by an underwater ROV provided by the Singapore Navy, during a news conference at the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta January 14, 2015. A military vessel on Wednesday located the fuselage of the AirAsia passenger jet that crashed more than two weeks ago off the coast of Indonesia, raising hopes that more bodies will be found. The fuselage, the part of the plane that holds pilots and passengers, was discovered around 3 kilometers from where the tail of the aircraft was retrieved last weekend at the bottom of the Java Sea, Indonesian officials said.
  • By Associated Press

| Jakarta, Indonesia

A Singaporean navy ship has found the crashed AirAsia plane's fuselage, a 30-meter-long section with a wing attached, in the Java Sea, authorities said Wednesday.

Images taken by a remote-controlled vehicle from the ship showed parts of the plane's wing and words on the fuselage, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said on his Facebook page. He said Indonesian search officials have been notified so they can begin recovery operations.

The fuselage section that was found is 30 meters long and 10 meters wide with a height of 3 meters, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said.

"The fuselage with a wing still attached on it was found in the priority search area and has been confirmed as part of AirAsia plane," Soelistyo said.

He added it was almost two miles from the tail, which was found earlier, and 2,625 feet from the black boxes, at a depth of 92 feet.

The plane carrying 162 people disappeared from radar on Dec. 28 less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

Many of the victims are believed to be entombed in the main section of the aircraft's cabin.

Also Wednesday, fishermen found two bodies along with plane seats and debris off the coast off South Kalimantan, bringing to 50 the total of bodies recovered so far.

President Joko Widodo expressed happiness for the discovery, saying that divers would examine the fuselage Thursday.

The plane's "black boxes" — the flight data recorder and cockpit flight recorder — were retrieved on Monday and Tuesday and will be key to learning what caused the plane to crash. Bad weather is a suspected factor.

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