AirAisa flight QZ8501 crash: Black box discovered by divers in Java sea
Part of the black box belonging to AirAsia flight QZ8501 has been discovered by divers exploring the Java sea.
The plane crashed on 28 December as it flew from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, and so far researchers have identified the cause as bad weather.
Finding the black box is a crucial step because it will allow researchers to put together an exact timeline of what happened to the plane after it went off radar.
According to Indonesian officials, the flight data recorder has been retrieved. This contains information about the condition of the engine, the activities of the pilots, the plane's altitude and whether it stalled.
Pings were detected by search ships over the weekend, and these were soon identified as signals from the black box's emergency locator transmitter.
Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told reporters in Jakarta that he “received information from the National Transport Safety Committee chief that we succeeded in bringing up part of the black box that we call the flight data recorder".
The other part of the black box – the cockpit voice recorder – has also been located but divers have not yet been able to reach it.
Some 162 people were on board the flight, and most of the bodies are believed to still be trapped the main body of the plane. So far only the tail has been found – it was brought to the surface last week.
According to Soelistyo, the next stage of the investigation will be "searching for bodies that are still or suspected to still be trapped underwater".