Tail of crashed AirAsia lifted from seabed

ABOARD KRI BANDA ACEH, Indonesia: The mangled tail of an AirAsia plane that crashed with 162 people on board was lifted out of the Java Sea Saturday, but without the crucial flight recorders, Indonesian authorities said.
The Airbus jet went missing in stormy weather on Dec. 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, killing all aboard. The wreckage of the tail, which contained the black box data recorders that are essential to explaining the disaster, was found in the seabed 10 days after the crash.
The 10-meter-long (33-feet) stretch of mostly mangled metal was finally lifted on to a tugboat vessel on Saturday using giant balloons and a crane, but there was no sign of the black boxes.
“It’s definite that the black boxes aren’t there,” S.B Supriyadi, a director with the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters after the tail had been inspected.
The black boxes are seen as important because they should contain the pilots’ final words as well as various flight data.
However Supriyadi said the boxes were still emanating ping signals and were believed to be buried in the seabed close to where the tail was found, about 30 meters under the surface.
Supriyadi said divers, from an elite Marines unit, would continue scouring the sea for the black boxes.