MISSING #QZ8501 ...Sad end to QZ8501
Jakarta has confirmed that AirAsia flight QZ8501 has crashed in the Java Sea with 162 crew and passengers.
As at 3.30PM, about 40 bodies were retrieved from the crash site while debris found were confirmed as parts of the Airbus 320-200.
Let us offer condolence and sympathy to their families and next of kin.
An Indonesian warship recovered more than 40 bodies from the sea Tuesday in the search for the AirAsia jet, a navy spokesman told AFP.A female AirAsia officer shouted at the television media for showing footage of a floating body, while about 200 journalists were barred from the room holding the families, the windows of which were boarded up.
"Based on the navy radio, it has been reported that the warship Bung Tomo has retrieved 40 bodies and the number is growing. They are very busy now," Manahan Simorangkir said.
At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city -- the take-off point for the aircraft that disappeared during a storm on Sunday.
"My heart will be totally crushed if it's true. I will lose a son," 60-year-old Dwijanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.
More than 48 hours after the Airbus A320-200 lost contact carrying 162 people to Singapore, aerial searchers spotted items in the Java Sea which officials said were from the plane. Soon after they began recovering dozens of bodies.
As the first body was shown floating in the water on rolling television news, relatives burst into tears and hugged one another amid cries for more ambulances, said an AFP reporter at the scene.
One man covered his face and had to be held up by two other men before he fainted and was taken out by stretcher. Another woman was screaming and crying as she was supported by the mayor of Surabaya.
"Is it possible for you not to show a picture of the dead? Please do not show a picture of a dead body," said the officer. "That's crazy."
Munif, a 50-year-old whose younger brother Siti Rahmah was on the plane, said he had been trying hard to keep the other families calm.
"But the atmosphere was very different after the footage of a dead body was shown. Families became hysterical," he said.
"Because everyone was wailing and yelling, I couldn't deal with it so I decided to leave the room."
In Malaysia, families of those on the MH370 flight that went missing without a trace in March hoped those lost in the latest tragedy could at least have a proper burial.
"The families can now have a closure and have a peace of mind which I am dying for," said Selamat Omar, whose 29-year-old son was on the Malaysia Airlines plane.
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