Body returned to family

SURABAYA, Indonesia — More ships arrived Friday with sensitive equipment to search for the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the more than 150 people still missing since it crashed five days ago.

The Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea on Sunday with 162 people on board. Ten bodies have been recovered so far, with the latest announced Friday morning.

So far, one victim of the crash has been identified and was returned to her family Thursday, one of many painful reunions to come.

Hayati Lutfiah Hamid’s identity was confirmed by fingerprints and other means, said Col. Budiyono of East Java’s Disaster Victim Identification Unit.

Her body was handed over to family members during a brief ceremony at a police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, where the plane took off.

The coffin was then taken to a village and lowered into a muddy grave, following Muslim obligations requiring bodies to be buried quickly.

The longer the search takes, the more corpses will decompose and debris scatter.

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas in Australia said there’s a good chance the plane hit the water largely intact, and that many passengers remain inside it.

Associated Press