Indonesia's military halts recovery efforts for crashed AirAsia jet

[PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia] Indonesia's military on Tuesday halted search and recovery efforts for an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed last month killing all 162 people on board, navy officials said.

"The operation has been ongoing for 30 days so the joint team has been pulled out," Rear Admiral Widodo, head of the navy's western fleet, told reporters. "We apologise to the families of the victims. We tried our best to look for the missing victims."

Seventy bodies have been recovered.

Days of rough weather and poor visibility have hampered navy divers' efforts to find more bodies and recover the fuselage of the plane.

The Airbus A320-200 vanished from radar screens on Dec 28, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-biggest city, to Singapore. There were no survivors.

The flight recorders have been recovered and are being analysed.

REUTERS