Indonesian search and rescue teams have ended the hunt for victims of last year's AirAsia plane crash, an official says, with 56 people still unaccounted for.
Flight QZ8501 went down in stormy weather during what was supposed to be a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on December 28, killing all 162 people on board.
The crash of the Airbus A320-200 into the Java Sea sparked a huge international hunt, with ships and aircraft from several nations scouring the sea for the plane wreckage and the victims.
The search was scaled back dramatically in recent weeks, with foreign vessels withdrawing as well as the Indonesian military, which had provided the bulk of personnel and equipment.
Indonesia's civilian search and rescue agency had continued the hunt, but on a smaller scale and their teams were only occasionally finding more bodies and wreckage.
S.B. Supriyadi, the search agency official coordinating the effort, told AFP that the search would "end completely" on Tuesday (local time) and the four ships involved would return to Jakarta on Wednesday.
The total number of victims found stood at 106, he said. Search teams last found more bodies on Saturday, when three were discovered under some wreckage, he added.
The chief of the Malaysian low-cost airline Tony Fernandes signalled last week that operations were drawing to a close.
"There is a time period and we've agreed with the families that this is obviously not something that can go on indefinitely," he said.
The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee has so far shed little light on what caused the crash.
It has reported that the plane climbed rapidly in an area of towering storm clouds, and that the co-pilot was at the controls, rather than the more experienced pilot, in the moments before the crash.
The plane's black box flight data recorders have been recovered, which will provide vital clues about what caused the crash.
AFP
source: newshub archive
