Jakarta: Indonesia's National Transport committee, on Tuesday has confirmed that the French first officer of AirAsia Jet that crashed into the sea last month was at the controls at the time of the accident.
The investigator for the NTSC, Mardjono Siswosuwarno, told the media persons that the flight data recorder recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea gives a "pretty clear picture of what happened in the last moments of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 but he refused to divulge further details.
The Airbus A320 was flying from Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya to Singapore on Dec 28 last year. It went off radar screens under the bad weather. All 162 people on board lost their lives.
Mardjono added, "The second-in-command, popularly known as the co-pilot, who usually sits to the right of the cockpit was flying the plane and the captain, sitting to the left, was the pilot monitoring."
Mardjono further added that the flight data recorders and cockpit voice showed that the plane was cruising at a stable altitude before crash. The aircraft was in sound condition when it took off, and all crew members were properly certified, he said.
"The plane was flying before the incident within the limits of weight and balance envelope and the flight crew had valid licenses and medical certificates." Mardjono confirmed.
NTSC chief Tatang Kurniadi told the reporters that as per the guidelines of Global aviation rules Indonesia had submitted its Preliminary report on the crash to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on Wednesday.
The report which is yet to be made public, was purely factual and contained no analysis and the final report would take at least 6-7 months to complete, he further added.
Indonesia has previously claimed that the aircraft climbed abruptly from its cruising height and then stalled, or lost lift, before plunging out of control into the Java Sea.
On Wednesday, Indonesia said, the search operation for more dead bodies could end within a few days if no more bodies were found.
Till now, a concerted multinational search and recovery operation has traced 70 bodies in the Java Sea and had hoped to find more bodies esp. after the finding of the plane's fuselage. But continuous rough weather and poor underwater visibility have severely affected navy diver's search efforts.
