PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) – The investigation into the AirAsia crash has turned to the ocean floor, with more sonar equipment and metal detectors deployed Friday to scour the seabed for wreckage, including the plane’s black boxes.
Sixteen bodies have been recovered, including seven Friday, six of which were found by a U.S. Navy ship.
A helicopter from the USS Sampson brought the corpses to Pangkalan Bun, the town nearest to the site. They were unloaded and driven off in ambulances.
Rescuers hope the fuselage – if intact – will contain the remains of many of the nearly 150 passengers and crew still missing. The wreckage will be key to explaining what might have caused Flight 8501 to go down.
The Airbus A320 smashed into the Java Sea on Sunday, halfway into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore. Minutes earlier, the pilot told air-traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic.