AirAsia crash: 3 more bodies recovered

Jakarta, Jan 5: International search teams on Monday found the bodies of three more people who were on board the AirAsia jet which crashed Dec 28, taking the number of bodies recovered so far to 37.

A helicopter of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue agency picked up the bodies found earlier in the day by a Malaysian navy ship, Xinhua reported.

According to authorities, one of those bodies was of a woman, the remaining two are yet to be identified.

The bodies were rushed to the Imanuddin hospital in the central Kalimantan province of Indonesia's Borneo island before being transported to Surabaya, where the ill-fated aircraft had taken off for Singapore.

The AirAsia flight with 155 passengers and seven crew members went missing soon after taking off.

The Airbus A320-200 was cruising at an altitude of 32,000 feet when it lost contact with air traffic control amid a thunderstorm in the area over Java Sea.

The jetliner is believed to have crashed near the Karimata Strait, 153 km from Kalimantan province.

Four large objects believed to be of the plane were found Saturday, the biggest one being 18 meters long.

Another large object - 9.8 metres long, 1.1 metres wide and 0.4 metre high - was found by Indonesian teams on Sunday.

IANS