Searchers put to test in search for crashed plane in Indonesian waters(3)

The ship encircled the crash site to look for debris or bodies of the doomed plane before turned back to the seaport after the bad weather stopped.

Bad weather has been the most crucial problem faced by searchers as it made their expertise useless.

A diver from Indonesian navy's frogman troop unit (Kopaska) said that high waves incited by storm rain would exacerbate poor visibility below the surface of the sea due to murky undersea materials.

In addition, it makes plumes of undersea steam shoot out erratically. "In that kind of condition we cannot see anything even with spotlights. The high waves would also endanger crews of the supporting boat that are awaiting on the the surface," Muhammad Basrori, a 26 years old diver from the Kopaska told Xinhua onboard the Purworejo search ship on Thursday.

A total of 47 divers from the navy's teams of Kopaska, Jala Mangkara (Denjaka)and Amphibian Surveillance (Taifib) failed to embarked to the searching areas due to heavy weather that occurred since the morning. Speaking near diving equipments prepared by the navy, Basrori said that divers also taking risks from predators and poisonous sea snakes that are often seen in shallow waters.

"Before the dive, we were injected with anti-poison serum to avoid bad impacts from sea snake bites," Basrori said.

In case of searching bodies from calamity in the sea, Basrori said that divers must also pay high attention to predators like sharks that seek food from those lifeless bodies.

The man who takes part in the initial diver team deployed in the mission said that stingray is also a serious threat as once a diver is stung by its tail, he will no longer survive within the next few minutes.

Deployment of the initial diving team was eventually delayed a few days later due to the ensuing heavy weather.

Search from the air also demands searchers' high skills and expertise as the searching area spreads in tens of nautical miles in Indonesia's Java Sea near Karimata Strait.

Lieut. Col. Setiawan, a pilot of Indonesian air forces' CN 295 surveillance plane, said that his plane had to fly non-stop at an average of 10 hours each day in the mission to seek debris and bodies from the crashed Air Asia QZ 8501. "The flight was also quite risky as we fly flat above the sea surface at an altitude of 500 feet, or 100 meters for 6 hours," Setiawan told Xinhua on Sunday in Pangkalan Bun air force base that has been used as a command post to evacuate debris and bodies found at the crash site.

Setiawan said that pilots were all required to have fit bodies in order to fly in such a low altitude above sea surface for hours.

"Flying in that situation may cause vertigo to the pilots. They may hardly be able to determine the color of the sky. On the other hand they are assigned to stay focus searching for objects in the sea surface," the pilot from Squadron 2 based in Jakarta air forces base pointed out.

The command post besieged helicopters and planes in the air forces base located the closest to the crash site.

Those aircraft from all forces and police are ready to be scrambled to seek suspected objects on the sea surface. Besides searching the debris and bodies, helicopters are tasked to immediately evacuate the recovered bodies from navy ships that keep them after being raised from the sea by searchers.

Excellent coordination and efforts have been demonstrated by multinational teams carrying out the mission. As of Wednesday, the teams have recovered 40 bodies from the crash.

An official with the Indonesian national search and rescue agency (BASARNAS) SB Supriyadi said that most probably bodies of passengers were still trapped in the wreckage of the plane.