Divers to try to recover black box, which should contain pilots’ last words as well as flight data, from Java Sea on Monday

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Indonesian divers have found the black box flight recorders of the AirAsia plane that crashed in the Java Sea a fortnight ago with 162 people on board, the transport ministry has said.

However, they did not retrieve the box immediately from the seabed because it was stuck under debris from the main body of the plane.

“The navy divers in Jadayat state boat have succeeded in finding a very important instrument, the black box of AirAsia QZ8501,” said a senior ministry spokesman. The recorders were at a depth of 30-32 metres (99-106 feet), he said.

Divers will try on Monday to shift the position of the wreckage to access the black box. “However, if this effort fails, then the team will lift part of the main body using the same balloon technique used earlier to lift the tail,” the spokesman said.

After a frustrating two-week search hampered by bad weather, officials on Sunday reported that strong ping signals had been detected coming from the seabed less than 0.6 miles (1km) from where the tail was found.

The Indonesian meteorological agency has said stormy weather likely caused the Airbus A320-200 to crash as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on 28 December.

But a definitive answer is impossible without the black box, which should contain the pilots’ final words as well as various flight data.

SB Supriyadi, a director with the national search and rescue agency, told reporters that an object believed to be the plane’s main body had been detected near the source of the pings.

The search, which has involved US, Chinese and ships from other navies, has recovered 48 bodies so far.

Supriyadi said many bodies were believed to be trapped in the cabin, so reaching that part of the wreckage was a top priority.

The tail of the plane, with its red AirAsia logo, was lifted out of the water on Saturday using giant balloons and a crane. It was brought by tugboat on Sunday to a port near the search headquarters at Pangkalan Bun on Borneo.

All but seven of those on board the flight were Indonesian. The bodies of a South Korean couple were identified on Sunday, but their 11-month-old baby remains unaccounted for, Indonesian authorities said.

The other foreigners were one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a Frenchman – co-pilot Remi Plesel. Their bodies have not been recovered.

While the cause of the crash is unknown, the disaster has once again placed Indonesia’s chaotic aviation industry under scrutiny.

Indonesian officials have alleged Indonesia AirAsia did not have a licence to fly the route on the day of the crash, although the airline rejects the claim.

Indonesia’s transport ministry quickly banned AirAsia from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route. On Friday, it suspended dozens more routes operated by five other domestic airlines for licence violations.