"On the 14th day of the search and rescue operation the red tail of the aircraft with a white letter "A" written on it… reached the surface of the water," the news outlet said.
The tail was detected nearly 30 meters (100 feet) below the sea surface some 30 km away from the crashed plane's location, Reuters says. Rescuers managed to lift the wreckage by using air bags. Investigators are going to search it for flight recorders after transporting it to the land.
The divers of the Russian Emergencies Ministry were the only foreigners who participated in raising the tail of AirAsia Indonesia’s aircraft to the surface, the head of the Russian search team in Indonesia told reporters.
Russian team in the centre of rescue operation for #QZ8501 pic.twitter.com/BLpSt8igYG
— Russian Embassy, IDN (@RusEmbJakarta) 10 января 2015
"Russian rescuers were involved in this complex technical operation — raising of the tail of Airbus A-320," Eduard Chizhikov said, adding that the Russian team was involved in the "underwater diving" operations.
Chizhikov also said that Indonesia's ship Crest Onyx also played a major part in the operation. The tail of the plane is currently at the deck of Crest Onyx and is being searched for the black box data recorders.
Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency Director Marsma Supriyadi who said that the black boxes were not in the tail section of the plane now stresses that the fragment should be checked again.
The signal from the black boxes of the AirAsia aircraft were detected Friday. The signal was originating from a spot about 300 meters (985 feet) away from the plane’s tail.
The cause of the crash is unknown. Indonesian search and rescue teams supported by international partners including Russia continue to search for the plane wreckage and the plane’s black box, which will give investigators insight into the fatal accident.
