Body brought up from Helo 3kms down

The body of Special Air Service trooper Joshua Porter has been recovered from the wreckage of an Australian Defence Force Blackhawk that crashed three months ago off the SSE coast of Fiji. The wreckage sank to a depth of 2750m. In a complex recovery operation, a remotely operated vehicle located the helo and the trooper's body and extricated it. The body was brought to the surface on Monday in a basket. The ROV's grapples are also to be used to place slings around the Blackhawk and enable it to be retrieved for examination.

The UH-60 crashed on landing upon HMAS Kanimbla's aft deck on 29 November, toppling over the side. The pilot died, but eight other Defence personnel were rescued. The initial site survey to recover the one missing body cost in excess of A$1m, however the wreckage recovery is expected to cost eight times that amount.

The operation's success points to the possibilities in relation to the recovery of human remains and flight recorders from Adam Air's Flight 574, a 737-400 lost in heavy weather in the Makassar Straits on New Year's day. It lies at a similar depth off the coast near the town of Polewali on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. The wreck of PK-KKW contains the remains of 102 passengers and crew. Thus far only a portion of the left wing and the horizontal stabilizer have been positively identified. Although over 200 other pieces of miscellaneous non-structural flotsam and jetsam have been retrieved, no human remains have been located.

The flight data recorder is located at 03°41′02″S, 118°08′53″E at a depth of 2,000 m, while the cockpit voice recorder is located at 03°40′22″S, 118°09′16″E at a depth of 1,900 m. This would indicate that the black boxes are separated by about 1.4 kms. Notwithstanding that their underwater Locator Beacons' batteries are long dead, the black boxes should be retrievable.