The number of recovered bodies almost tripled on Friday, after 21 of the 162 passengers and crew were found, many of them by a US navy ship.

Rescue teams hope many of those who were on board are still within the fuselage, which has not been located.

The Airbus A320-200 lost contact with air-traffic control on Sunday, halfway into a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Minutes earlier the pilot had requested permission to ascend in order to avoid turbulence. His request, however, was denied due to heavy air traffic.

The pilots did not send a distress signal and it still remains unclear what caused the plane to plunge into the sea.

Despite bad weather, an international search and recovery team is continuing to scour the sea off the coast of Borneo for the aircraft's wreck as well as cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes.

"We will focus on underwater detection," said Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

ksb/se (AP, AFP)