REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KOTAWARINGIN BARAT -- Japan's Self-Defense Force has joined the Indonesia-led search mission to recover the victims, black box, and fuselage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 by sending two vessels to the priority area, a Japanese military officer stated.

The JS Ohnami and JS Takanami have been in the waters of Karimata Strait about 140 kilometers southwest of Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan Province, since January 3, Captain Tsutomu Okawa of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force noted here on Wednesday (7/1).

Before being dispatched to join the search for the ill-fated aircraft carrying 162 people that crashed on December 28, 2014, in its flight from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore, the two vessels conducted coordinated patrols to combat piracy in the African waters.

Since their presence in the priority search area, the two Japanese navy ships have so far recovered some debris, a body, and a life jacket of a plane crash victim, he remarked.

As of Wednesday afternoon or the 11th day, the search workers have so far recovered 40 bodies, of which 39 have been transported to the East Java city of Surabaya to be identified by the police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team.

In another development, the rescue workers have discovered parts of AirAsia Flight QZ8501's tail in the additional priority area, Chief of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) F.H. Bambang Soelistyo stated.

"This discovery has been confirmed," he informed during a press briefing on the latest development of the Basarnas-led search mission to find the victims and fuselage of the ill-fated jet.

Soelistyo noted that the tail of the aircraft carrying 162 people on board that crashed in the waters of Karimata Strait near Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan Province, on December 28, 2014, was not found in the first priority area.

Instead, parts of the aircraft's tail were recovered in the "second additional priority sector", he confirmed.

A massive search mission has been launched since the day of the deadly crash. Indonesia is being assisted by countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia.

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