Update | Seven more bodies recovered as French black box team searches for AirAsia plane
Seven more bodies were recovered today as specialist teams continued to search for the wreckage of AirAsia flight QZ8501, which disappeared on Sunday carrying 162 passengers and crew.
It brings the total confirmed dead to 16, according to Associated Press.
A helicopter from the USS Sampson brought the corpses to Pangkalan Bun, the town nearest to the site off Borneo. They were unloaded and driven off in ambulances.
Rescuers hope the fuselage - if intact - will contain the remains of many of the nearly 150 passengers and crew still missing. The wreckage will be key to explaining what might have caused flight QZ8501 to go down.
A specialist black box search team sent by the French crash investigation agency arrived earlier on Friday after heavy seas forced divers to halt their search the day before.
"During the morning of January 2, local time, a ship will be taking the investigators to the search area, with detection equipment including hydrophones [underwater acoustic detection devices], in order to try to locate the acoustic beacons from the two flight recorders," BEA said in a statement.