"We managed to detect the tail of the aircraft using the side-scan sonar," the commander of the warship Bung Tomo, Colonel Yayan Sofyan said as quoted by the DPA.
A piece of wreckage that is believed to be the crashed plane’s tale was located in the sea bed some 29 meters (95 feet) deep.
AirAsia Flight QZ8501 from Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya was heading to Singapore on Sunday when it vanished off radars about 40 minutes after the takeoff. On Tuesday, its debris and bodies of people who had been aboard were spotted around in the Karimata Strait off the coast of Borneo.
AirAsia flight search: 30 victims’ bodies recovered, some of them belted into seats #AirAsia8501 pic.twitter.com/TrKYwVyg1F
— Akbar H Ansari (@akbaraha) 2 января 2015
According to the local media, 30 bodies of the crash victims have been recovered so far. The flight was carrying a total of 162 passengers and crew.
Not just a number — a look at just some of the 162 people on board @AirAsia flight #QZ8501 via @STcom #AirAsia8501 pic.twitter.com/K291ypAFGD
— Haidi Lun 伦海迪 (@HaidiLun) 1 января 2015