– First funeral –
Relatives held the first funeral for an AirAsia victim Thursday afternoon after her body was handed over to her family in Surabaya.
Police said she was identified as Hayati Lutfiah Hami from fingerprints and a surgery scar, plus an ID and a bracelet on her which the family recognised.
A crisis centre for identifying the victims has been set up at a police hospital in Surabaya with facilities to store 150 bodies. READ: First AirAsia funeral as bad weather hampers search.
Police said they would be using fingerprints, dental records and DNA to identify victims. Visual identification is likely to become difficult the longer the bodies remain in the tropical sea.
The plane is believed to be in relatively shallow water of around 25-32 metres (82-105 feet).
Before take-off the pilot had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a storm. But his request was not approved due to other planes above him on the popular route, according to AirNav, Indonesia’s air traffic control.
In his last communication, Captain Iriyanto, an experienced former air force pilot, said he wanted to change course to avoid the menacing storm system. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after the plane had taken off.
Of the 162 passengers and crew on board Flight QZ8501, 155 were Indonesian, with three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a – co-pilot Remi Plesel.
The plane was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, which previously had a solid safety record.
The crash came at the end of a disastrous year for Malaysian air travel.
After the disappearance of Flight MH370 in March, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew, another Malaysia Airlines flight – MH17 – was shot down over Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board.
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