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                   Investigators Recover Tail of AirAsia Jet

   by VOA News

   Indonesian authorities say searchers have lifted to the surface of the
   Java Sea the tail of an AirAsia plane that crashed on December 28,
   killing all 162 people on board.

   Recovery teams attached balloons to the wreckage Saturday to float the
   tail section to the surface.  Investigators hope the cockpit voice and
   data recorders are still inside the tail.  Their recovery is essential
   to finding out the cause of the crash.

   Searchers detected ping signals from the black boxes of Flight 8501 on
   Friday, but officials said the boxes seemed to be separated from the
   tail section.

   The tail was located Wednesday on the sea bed about 30 kilometers from
   the plane's last known location at a depth of around 30 meters.

   The Airbus 320 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea
   less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's
   second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

   There were no survivors of the crash.  Only 48 bodies have been
   recovered so far.

   Authorities hope most of the rest of the victims can be recovered from
   the several large pieces of wreckage on the ocean floor.

   Before takeoff and during the last moments of the flight, the pilots
   requested to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a storm.  The request
   was not approved because other planes were in the area.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/indonesia-plane/2592971.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/indonesia-plane/2592971.html