Investigators rule out terrorism in Air Asia crash
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Jakarta (dpa) - There is no evidence of terrorism in the crash of an AirAsia plane that killed all 162 people aboard last month, an Indonesian investigator said Tuesday.
The National Transport Safety Committee, which has begun transcribing the cockpit voice recordings, has found no indications of foul play, Nurcahyo Utomo said.
"We didn't find any indications of terrorism," he said. "There were no other voices apart from those of the pilots." The aircraft crashed in the Java Sea on December 28 en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia. So far, 53 bodies have been recovered.
Nurcahyo declined to disclose other information gleaned from the recordings, saying the work was not yet finished. A preliminary report will be released January 28, he said.
"We have 12 months to release a final report but we hope it will be sooner," he said. In another development, fishermen found the nose of the aircraft off Sembilan Island, search operation chief Suryadi Supriyadi said. A team was sent to retrieve it. Search teams were still trying to examine the aircraft's fuselage onthe seabed with the aim of raising it to the surface, using a barge equipped with a crane or inflated lifting bags, he said.
