First Confirmed Sighting Of Wreckage From The Airliner

Search teams have located the tail section of the AirAsia Airbus A320 that went down a week ago in the Java Sea with 162 people on board.

USA Today relays a report from Reuters that indicates the first confirmed piece of wreckage from the plane was found by an unmanned underwater vehicle and photographed. "Today we successfully discovered the part of the plane that became the main aim since yesterday," Soelistyo said. "I can ensure that this is part of the tail with the AirAsia mark on it," National Search and Rescue chief Henry Soelistyo said during a news conference.

The tail section of the plane is where the cockpit voice and flight data recorders are located in the A320, making this a significant discovery in the investigation.

So far, 40 bodies have been recovered from the area. Soelistyo said recovering the victims from the accident is a top priority, along with retrieving the CVR and FDR from the aircraft. The search effort has been hampered by inclement weather and heavy seas in the area of the accident.

(Image released by the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency)

FMI: www.basarnas.go.id/