Bad weather has forced Indonesian divers to call off an operation to raise the main fuselage of AirAsia QZ8501, but they will try again on Sunday, a search team leader told CNN.
Four more bodies have been recovered, said Marshall Supriyadi, director of operations and training for Indonesia’s search and rescue agency. That brings the total number of victims now found to 69.
Indonesian divers tried Saturday to float the wreckage using a giant balloon, said Supriyadi.
They made several descents to the fuselage to attach the balloon, weighing around 10 tons, to the fuselage using ropes and belts, and to inflate it. But the operation hit a snag when a belt broke as the team tried to bring the wreckage up to the surface.
Divers successfully carried out the same procedure with the tail section of the aircraft earlier this month.
The aircraft went down on December 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya toward Singapore with 162 people on board.
It’s believed many of the remaining bodies could be in the wreckage of the fuselage, which searchers located 10 days ago at the bottom of the sea.
Efforts to examine and get inside the wreckage have been hindered by high waves and strong currents.
A top Indonesian official said Tuesday that the aircraft had climbed rapidly, and then stalled, shortly before it crashed.
Experts have speculated from the outset that storms might have played a role in the plane crash.
Amid increasingly bad weather, one of the pilots had requested to deviate from the plane’s planned route, AirAsia has said.
The analysis of the data recorders for the preliminary report on the crash is now 90% complete, according to National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Nurcahyo Utomo.
Utomo, an expert in “black box” analysis, said he had already listened to the pilot and co-pilot’s conversation from the cockpit voice recorder. His team has also already “read” all of the data recorded in flight, including aircraft speed and altitude, he said.