KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 2 ― Indonesian authorities identified today three more victims from the Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 that fell into the Java Sea off Borneo.
The trio were identified through their dental records, fingerprints and medical records.
This brings the total number of people identified so far to four out of the 162 who were on the Singapore-bound flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya.
Indonesian news portal Detik.com, reported Grayson to be 11-years-old, travelling with two others, Kathleen Fulvia Linaksita, 12 and Tony Linaksita.
The relationship between the three has yet to be established.
There have been conflicting reports in the number of bodies recovered to date, with some news agencies reporting as many as 10; according to the Singaporean news channel, a total of eight bodies have been recovered to date.
The other bodies have yet to be identified due to insufficient data, and families have been asked to provide more information, Channel News Asia reported, citing Indonesian police.
Yesterday, passenger Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, also an Indonesian was the first victim to be identified by Indonesian officials. Her body was returned to her family later that day.
AirAsia Group chief Datuk Tony Fernandes said he would be accompanying 22-year-old air stewardess Khairunnisa’s body from Surabaya to her hometown of Palembang for her burial.
“I’m arriving in Surabaya to take Nisa home to Palembang. I cannot describe how I feel. There are no words,” he said in his twitter account earlier this afternoon.
Khairunnisa has been working with Airasia for two years.
The Airbus A320-200 was carrying seven crew and 155 passengers, including 17 children and a baby when it fell off the radar early Sunday morning amidst bad weather.
Most of the passengers and crew members on board were Indonesians, with the exception of a South Korean family of three, the French co-pilot, one Briton, one Singaporean and a Malaysian.
Indonesia’s search team scoured the sea for more than 48 hours before the first debris was spotted off the island of Borneo after a tip-off from local fishermen.
The AirAsia crash capped a year of aviation disasters for Malaysian-linked airlines in 2014.
The latest tragedy has seen an outpouring of sorrow from Malaysians, many who remain caught in disbelief and grief over the mysterious disappearance of 239 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing last March, and the downing of MH17 over Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur four months later.
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