Had High Waves, BMKG Weather Prediction Location Search For Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 Will Improve

SAR joint search operation for Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 (DOK. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Field Coordinator of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) at the JICT II Integrated Command Post, Sugarin, predicts that the location for the search for the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft that had experienced bad weather would get better at night.

"The trend is that one day until the night the trend will decrease. So that it will make it easier for the SAR team to evacuate. Weather conditions are also cloudy and the potential for light rain," said Sugarin when met at the JICT II Integrated Command Post, Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, Wednesday, 13 January.

Sugarin admitted that the weather conditions at the search location in the morning experienced strong winds, which disrupted SAR operations at the plane crash site.

Due to strong winds, the sea waves around the waters of Laki Island and Lancang Island, Thousand Islands became high this morning.

"However, in the next few hours the trend has decreased somewhat, so that the evacuation of the plane crash site by the SAR team will probably be continued," he said.

Previously, it was reported that the joint SAR team had temporarily stopped the search for victims and materials of the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft at the location of the plane's crash or last known position (LKP) due to high waves.

This was confirmed by the Deputy for Energy and Potential Development of SAR Basarnas, Abdul Haris Achadi. Haris said, initially the KM Karna ship departed for the search location from JICT II dock since 09.30 WIB today.

KM Karna brought a rescue team, divers, medical team, and journalists. After sailing for about 20 minutes, KM Karna turned around because he received news that the sea at the search location was experiencing high waves.

"And only until the mouth of the pool (the boundary between the pier and the high seas), we had to turn right because we got information on wave height at the location up to 2.5 meters," said Haris.

In fact, said Haris, the KM Karna ship also encountered waves of up to 1.5 meters at the border of the pier and the high seas.

Haris said a number of ships in the LKP had also temporarily suspended search operations due to the high waves and bad weather.

"At the location there are still Basarnas ships. There are several ships that do not continue (search) but are on standby and temporarily off while we see the weather," he said.