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January 19, 2015 ASIA / PACIFIC Balloons helped divers retrieve AirAsia black box from debris By Achmad Ibrahim THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5 FREE HOME REPAIRS FOR PORTLAND SENIOR & DISABLED HOMEOWNERS Plumbing l Electrical l Carpentry The Associated Press Call (503) 501-5719 or visit https://reachcdc.org P ANGKALAN BUN, Indo- nesia — Search and rescue workers used balloons and other equipment to lift debris from the AirAsia plane wreckage to allow divers to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder, according to the search coordinator. Divers recovered the flight data recorder January 12, but the second black box — which is actually orange — was pinned under chunks of the plane’s wing at a depth of 105 feet in the Java Sea. The divers could see the flight data recorder clearly as an orange object, but it was difficult to retrieve as layers of heavy metal and debris were above it,” according to Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the operation coordinator for Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency. The two instruments, which emit signals from their beacons, are vital to understanding what brought Flight 8501 down on December 28, killing all 162 people on board. They should provide essential information about the plane and all of the conversations between the captain and co-pilot for the duration of the flight. More than 80 Indonesian navy divers plunged into the shallow sea about 20 meters away from where the flight data recorder had been located, Supriyadi said. Workers prepared balloons and lifting bags to raise the debris, he said. Supriyadi also said an Indonesian warship had found pieces of the plane’s windows and interior cup- boards near the Java port of Semarang, about 450 miles southeast of where the jet had lost contact with Indonesian air traffic control, showing how far some debris has drifted since the accident. The flight data recorder has been taken to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, for evaluation. Downloading and analysis of the information has already started, according to Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the National Committee for Safety Transportation. Portland Housing Bureau Interpretation services available State Farm ® Providing Insurance and Financial Services Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710 Wayne Nishimura Ins. Agency Inc. Wayne Nishimura, Agent 14780 SW Osprey Drive, Suite 246 Beaverton, OR 97007-8424 Bus.: (503) 579-3005 w Toll-free: 1-800-555-6802 wayne.nishimura.gyd8@statefarm.com 24 Hour Good Neighbor Service ® ROUGH RETRIEVAL. A member of the Indonesian Air Force holds the recovered cockpit voice recorder from the ill-fated AirAsia Flight 8501 during a press conference in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia. Divers hope to retrieve the crashed AirAsia plane’s second black box from the bottom of the Java Sea to give experts essential tools to piece together what brought the jet down. (AP Photo) Based on past crashes, the infor- us an ocean of material.” The pilots of the AirAsia jet last mation retrieved from the black boxes could be vital. The two separate de- had contact with air traffic vices — designed to survive extreme controllers less than halfway into the heat and pressure — should provide two-hour flight from Surabaya, investigators with a second- Indonesia’s second-largest city, to by-second timeline of the plane’s Singapore. Saying they were entering flight. a stormy area, they asked to climb The voice recorder takes audio from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet to feeds from four microphones within avoid threatening clouds, but were the cockpit and records all conver- denied permission because of heavy sations between the pilots and air air traffic. Four minutes later, the traffic controllers as well as any plane dropped off the radar. No noises heard in the cockpit, including distress signal was sent. possible alarms or explosions. It Searchers also located the main records on a two-hour loop, so section of the plane’s cabin, where investigators won’t just capture the many of the victims’ bodies are plane’s final minutes but the entire believed to be entombed. 42-minute trip. So far, only 50 bodies have been The flight data recorder captures recovered. Decomposition is making about 25 hours of information on the identification more difficult for position and condition of almost every desperate families waiting to bury major part in a plane. It includes a their loved ones. Nearly all of the multitude of data, including altitude, passengers were Indonesian. airspeed, direction, engine thrust, “I still believe many victims remain the rate of ascent or descent, and trapped there, and we must find what angle up or down the plane was them,” said Gen. Moeldoko, Indo- pointed. nesia’s military chief, who uses one “[There are] like 200-plus param- name. eters they record,” said aviation Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini safety expert John Goglia, a former in Jakarta, Indonesia, Scott Mayerowitz in U.S. National Transportation Safety New York, and Nicki Mayo in Washington Board member. “It’s going to provide contributed to this report. 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Instead, the screen was filled with close-up shots showing only the heads of the female characters in the period piece, which depicts the seventh- century Tang Dynasty, an era when a woman’s beauty was defined partly by plumpness. No one has claimed responsibility for the awkward cropping, but it is widely believed to be the work of the country’s prudish censors. The changes have drawn a wave of mockery from a public that is fed up with ham-handed censorship. Chinese have lit up social media with complaints and jokes, with some posting cropped photos of celebrities and drawings that add in the missing BOSOM BAN. A television, left, displays the original version of a popular drama next to a com- puter displaying the version that was re-edited, in Beijing, China. At the end of December, a popular television series chronicling China’s most famous empress suddenly went on a four-day hiatus. When it returned on New Year’s Day, the low-cut necklines and squeezed bosoms had vanished. Instead, the screen was filled with close-up shots showing only the heads of the female characters in the period piece, which depicts the seventh-century Tang Dynasty, an era when a woman’s beauty was defined partly by plumpness. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) cleavages to show the absurdity of the nessman who has been outspoken on social issues, wrote on his microblog. cuts. “It was not a public issue, but has “What people are concerned about is become one after shameless officials not cleavage, but that a bunch of wielded their powerful administra- cultural hooligans are in charge of tive powers,” Ren Zhiqiang, a busi- Continued on page 13 Pre K- 5th • intlsc ho o l.o rg • 503- 226- 2496 Go paperless! Read The Asian Reporter – exactly as it’s printed here – online! Visit <www.asianreporter.com> and click the “Online Paper (PDF)” link to download our last two issues.
