Airasia Flight QZ8501 flight recorders discovered

Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) Searchers have found the flight recorders of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in the Java Sea, officials said Monday, a major breakthrough in the effort to figure out why the plane crashed last month.

Divers found the flight data recorder under the wreckage of one of the plane's wings, said Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

The search teams have also located but not yet recovered the other key source of information about the plane, the cockpit voice recorder, said Mardjono Siswosuwarno, the chief investigator into the crash.

The voice recorder is underneath debris, he said, expressing hope that it could be retrieved easily.

The two devices, known popularly as black boxes, are seen as crucial to unraveling the mystery of what brought down Flight QZ8501 as it flew toward Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya with 162 people on board.

Finding the data recorder is "a huge step in the right direction for investigators," said CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh. "It gives them so much information that they didn't have before."

Coupled with the debris that's already been collected, the data recorder will enable investigators to "begin to paint the picture of exactly what happened when things went terribly wrong for this aircraft," Marsh said.

Recorder's location 'is a clue'

The data recorder is expected to provide a vast range of information about what the plane was doing, including its air speed, engine performance and the cabin pressure.

The discovery of the device under the wreckage of a wing is significant, according to Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"That itself is a clue, because I think that pretty much indicates that the plane broke apart when it hit the water," she said, adding that if the aircraft had broken up at a high altitude, investigators wouldn't "have found the wreckage that close together."

The cockpit voice recorder is expected to give insight into how the pilots responded to the crisis that brought down the plane. It captures all sounds on the flight deck, notably conversations between the crew members.

The condition of the black boxes wasn't immediately clear, but Marsh said they were likely to have come through the crash with their information intact.

"They are built to withstand the most severe aircraft accidents," Marsh said. "We're talking about high temperatures, we're talking about pressure from being at the depths of the ocean."

Reams of data

The flight data recorder is expected to be taken to a lab in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, for analysis.

Once the information is downloaded, investigators should have "a pretty good idea within a couple of days" of what happened aboard the plane, Schiavo said.

The devices usually contain hundreds of parameters and thousands of data points, she said, that look a bit like an EKG when they're printed out.

But Schivao added that she didn't think officials would release any information publicly for a couple of weeks.

French aviation experts are helping the Indonesian investigation, which also expected to involve Airbus, the manufacturer of the downed plane, an A320-200.

The tail section of the aircraft, which houses the black boxes, was lifted from the Java Sea on Saturday. But searchers didn't find the flight recorders inside it.

The flight data recorder was found about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the location of the tail, according to Soelistyo, the head of the search agency.

Most bodies still missing

Searchers are still looking for the plane's fuselage, where many of the bodies of those on board the plane might be located.

A total of 48 bodies have so far been recovered from the sea, some of them still strapped into seats. Authorities have identified most of them.

Eben Tanapurtra, who lost seven family members in the disaster, told CNN that he was happy to hear the flight data recorder has been found but that his family and others hope authorities won't focus only on the black boxes.

"Please, please, continue the search for the missing bodies," he said. "We understand that the black box is crucial and so important for investigation. But please, do not consider the efforts to find the bodies as a less important thing."

Bad weather has hampered the search efforts for the aircraft, which are now in their 16th day. Flight QZ8501, operated by AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, went down on December 28.

The pilot had requested permission to turn and climb to a higher altitude minutes before contact was lost, according to Indonesian officials.

Hospitals prepare to ID bodies

Grim discovery: After 3 days of intense search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501, debris and dead bodies

CNN) -- [Breaking news update 6:16 a.m. ET]

So far, two bodies have been sighted, Indonesian Navy Official Manahan Simorangkir told CNN. The body of a woman has been recovered, but large waves have prevented crews from getting to the second body.

[Breaking news update 6 a.m. ET]

Hospitals in the Indonesian city of Surabaya are being prepared to help house and identify bodies being recovered off the coast of Borneo from a site where Indonesian officials think they've found debris from AirAsia Flight QZ8501, a search team official said.

After three days of intense searching for AirAsia Flight QZ8501, Indonesian teams made the grim discovery Tuesday: debris and dead bodies in the waters off the island of Borneo.

The crew on a military aircraft spotted the shadow of an object that looked like a plane in the water, said Bambang Sulistyo, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

Further searching located floating objects believed to be the bodies of passengers, and then what appeared to be an emergency exit of the plane, Sulistyo told a news conference.

Officials sent other search teams racing to the area.

So far, two bodies have been sighted, Indonesian Navy Official Manahan Simorangkir told CNN. The body of a woman has been recovered, but large waves prevented crews from getting to the second body.

Hospitals in the city of Surabaya were being prepared to help house and identify them.

The news dealt a heartbreaking blow to relatives of passengers who had been waiting anxiously for information at the airport in Surabaya, the Indonesian city where Flight 8501 began its journey Sunday with 162 people on board.

The plane was carrying 155 passengers and 7 crew members. The overwhelming majority of those on board were Indonesians. There were also citizens of Britain, France, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

There were scenes of anguish as families watched a live news conference about the discovery of the debris and saw video of a helicopter lowering a diver down to what appeared to be a floating body.

Some people fainted and stretchers were taken into the room.

Family members burst into tears, dabbing their eyes as officials passed out tissues. Some sat with their eyes full of tears, hands covering their mouths, or heads buried in their hands. Others had phones jammed against their ears.

'Words cannot express how sorry I am'

"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501," AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."

He said he was on his way to Surabaya.

Search and rescue teams are diverting all their resources to where the debris is located, authorities said. The area is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the aircraft's last known location over the Java Sea, off the coast of Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province on Borneo.

Divers and ships with sonar equipment are being sent to the site, where the depth of the sea at the site varies between 25 and 30 meters, Sulistyo said.

Ships, planes and helicopters have been scouring the sea for Flight 8501 since it went missing on its way to Singapore.

The Airbus A320-200 lost contact with air traffic control early Sunday shortly after the pilot requested permission to turn and climb to a higher altitude because of bad weather, according to Indonesian officials.

Unanswered questions

Authorities mounted a huge effort to find the aircraft, mapping out a search zone covering 156,000 square kilometers.

Questions remain unanswered about why Flight 8501 lost contact with air traffic control and what happened afterward.

Some experts have speculated that the aircraft might have experienced an aerodynamic stall because of a lack of speed or from flying at too sharp an angle to get enough lift.

Analysts have also suggested that the pilots might not have been getting information from onboard systems about the plane's position or that rain or hail from thunderstorms in the area could have damaged the engines.

The key to understanding what happened is likely to be contained in the aircraft's flight recorders.

"Until we get the black boxes, we won't know what's going on with the engines," Bill Savage, a former pilot with 30 years of experience, told CNN.

'It was to be his last vacation with his family'

Details have emerged about some of the people on board the plane.

They include Alain Oktavianus Siauw, whose fiance says she was on her way to the airport to pick him up when she heard the plane had gone missing.

Louise Sidharta said Siauw was supposed to be enjoying a family vacation before the two got married. "It was to be his last vacation with his family," she said.

Siauw's Facebook page says he lives in Malang, a province in Indonesia.

The disappearance of Flight 8501 also stirred painful memories of the families of people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over the South China Sea in March.

Nearly 10 months later, searchers are still combing remote reaches of the southern Indian Ocean for any trace of the Boeing 777 that had 239 people on board.

"The lack of ability to close things down emotionally is just exhausting," said Sarah Bajc told CNN on Monday night. Her partner, Philip Woods, was on board Flight 370.

When news broke that another plane had disappeared this week, Bajc said, "I just started to shake."

Searchers think missing jet is at 'bottom of the sea'

Official: AirAsia Flight QZ8501 likely at 'bottom of the sea'

(CNN) -- The missing AirAsia jet probably crashed into the sea, Indonesia's top rescue official said Monday, citing radar data from the plane's last contact.

"Our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea," Bambang Sulistyo, head of Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, told reporters, saying the view was based on the plane's flight track and last known coordinates.

But searchers still don't know exactly where the aircraft is, he said, and may need help from other countries for an underwater search.

The search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 resumed on Monday, a day after the commercial jet disappeared in Indonesian airspace with 162 people aboard.

Ships, planes and helicopters are looking for the missing aircraft, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search and rescue operations.

It's unclear if weather played a role in the aircraft's disappearance, but rescuers say it could be a factor that influences how quickly they find the plane.

Large waves and clouds hampered the search for the plane on Sunday, the agency said. By Monday morning, weather in the area appeared to be clearing up, CNN International meteorologist Tom Sater said.

Authorities say they're combing a "very broad search area."

What role did weather play?

Report: Higher altitude request denied

AirAsia says air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft at 7:24 a.m. Sunday Singapore time (6:24 a.m. in Indonesia).

The plane, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, went missing as it flew over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo -- a heavily traveled shipping channel with shallow waters -- Indonesian authorities said.

Before the plane, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic controllers, one of the pilots asked to change course and fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather, officials said. Heavy thunderstorms were reported in the area at the time.

Air traffic control approved the pilot's request to turn left but denied permission for the plane to climb to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet, Djoko Murjatmodjo, an aviation official at the Indonesian Transport Ministry told the national newspaper Kompas.

The increased altitude request was denied because there was another plane flying at that height, he said.

In addition to Indonesia's teams, several other countries have joined the hunt for the missing plane.

A C-130 plane from Singapore has been participating in the search, and the country's military says it's sending two more ships to the search area. Malaysia's transportation minister said his country has deployed three vessels and three aircraft to assist in the search. And the Royal Australian Air Force said Monday that it was deploying a patrol plane to help.

The U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet said it stands ready to assist the search efforts but so far hasn't been asked to help.

Indonesia has reached out to the United Kingdom, France and the United States for help with sonar technology that may be needed for an underwater search, Sulistyo told reporters Monday.

AirAsia CEO takes to Twitter

Anxious wait for relatives

After hours of waiting in anguish for any word about the passengers aboard the missing plane, several dozen of their family members met with airport and airline officials in a closed-door briefing Monday at the airport in Surabaya.

As they waited for news, some relatives took cell phone pictures of a flight manifest posted on a wall. The black-and-white papers showed every passenger's name and seat number, but not their fate.

Others simply sat and dabbed tears from their eyes.

Oei Endang Sulsilowati and her daughter were looking for information about her brother, his wife and their two children.

"We don't know what to do," Sulsilowati said. "We are just waiting for news."

"Our concern right now is for the relatives and the next of kin," AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said during a news conference in Surabaya.

Fernandes confirmed that storm clouds caused the pilot to ask for a change in flight plan, but added, "We don't want to speculate whether weather was a factor. We really don't know." Once the aircraft is found, there will be a proper investigation, he said.

Of the people on board the passenger jet, 155 are Indonesian, three are South Korean, one is British, one is French, one is Malaysian and one is Singaporean, the airline said.

Eighteen children, including one infant, are among the passengers, the carrier said. Seven of the people on board are crew members.

Families of AirAsia flight passengers given support through the 'nightmare'

The MH370 mystery

AirAsia, a successful budget airline group headquartered in Malaysia, had a clean safety record until the disappearance of Flight 8501. The missing plane is operated by the company's Indonesian affiliate.

The loss of contact with the plane comes nearly 10 months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over Southeast Asia on March 8 with 239 people on board.

Searchers have yet to find any remains of Flight 370, which officials believe went down in the southern Indian Ocean after mysteriously flying thousands of kilometers away from its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But some aviation experts don't think the search for Flight 8501 will be as challenging as the hunt for MH370.

"We are not talking about the deep Indian Ocean here," CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said. "We are talking about congested airspace around Southeast Asia. There will be much better radar coverage. There's certainly better air traffic control coverage."

AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 with 162 on board goes missing on way to Singapore

Relatives of the passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 comforted each other at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia, on Sunday.

(CNN) -- The search is on for an AirAsia passenger jet carrying 162 people that lost contact with Indonesian air traffic control early Sunday, gripping Southeast Asia with a second missing plane crisis in less than a year.

Before communication was lost, a pilot on AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 asked to deviate from its planned route -- from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore -- because of bad weather, officials said.

The aircraft went missing as it flew over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search and rescue operations.

Of the people on board the Airbus A320-200, 155 are Indonesian, three are South Korean, one is British, one is French, one is Malaysian and one is Singaporean, the airline said.

Seventeen children, including one infant, are among the passengers, the carrier said. Seven of the people on board are crew members.

At the airport in Surabaya, loved ones gathered and wept as they waited for any word on the passengers.

Some took cell phone pictures of a flight manifest posted on a wall. The black-and-white papers showed every passenger's name and seat number, but not their fate.

Others simply sat and dabbed tears from their eyes.

"Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We must stay strong," AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes said on Twitter. He later announced he was traveling to Surabaya, saying most of the passengers are from there.

As word spread of the missing plane, the airline changed the color of its logo on its website and social media accounts from red to gray.

Heavy thunderstorms in area

Flight 8501 "was requesting deviation due to en route weather before communication with the aircraft was lost," the airline said.

The flight's captain asked permission to climb to a higher altitude, said Djoko Murdjatmojo, the head of aviation at the Indonesian Transportation Ministry, according to the national news agency.

According to flight tracking websites, almost the entire flight path of the plane was over the sea.

Bad weather gripped the region at the time, CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.

"We still had lines of very heavy thunderstorms" when the plane was flying, Van Dam said. "But keep in mind, turbulence doesn't necessarily bring down airplanes."

CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said that if there was an onboard emergency, the pilots should have issued a mayday call or a pan-pan call.

"Mayday means you're immediately in danger of losing the flight; pan-pan means that it is urgent but that you can continue the flight and request an alternate route or an alternate airport," said Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"It's disconcerting in that the standard procedures for an emergency don't seem to have been deployed," she said.

The bad weather in the area is also likely to hamper the search efforts for the aircraft, said Alan Diehl, a former U.S. air accident investigator.

The Malaysian government said it has deployed three vessels and three aircraft to help Indonesian authorities in the search for the plane. Singapore said it has activated its rescue and aviation agencies. Australia said it had also offered assistance.

There was conflicting information about when exactly Flight 8501 went missing. AirAsia said contact was lost at 7:24 a.m. Sunday, Surabaya time (7:24 p.m. Saturday ET), but Indonesian aviation authorities said it happened earlier, at 6:17 a.m.

'Very good' safety reputation

AirAsia is a Malaysia-based airline that is popular in the region as a budget carrier. It has about 100 destinations, with affiliate companies in several Asian countries.

The missing plane is operated by AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, in which the Malaysian company holds a 48.9% stake, according to its website.

AirAsia has a "very good" reputation for safety, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said.

Flight 8501's captain has a total of 6,100 flying hours, and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours, the airline said. The plane's last scheduled maintenance was on November 16, it said.

The French Foreign Ministry said the first officer is the French citizen who is on the plane. A state-run company in Indonesia that manages airports identified the first officer as Remi Emmanuel Plesel.

Airbus said the plane had "accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights." The aircraft manufacturer said it would provide full assistance to authorities in charge of investigating the missing plane.

The loss of contact with the AirAsia plane comes nearly 10 months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over Southeast Asia on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The Malaysia Airlines plane, a Boeing 777-200ER, lost contact with air traffic control over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Searchers have yet to find any debris from Flight 370, which officials believe crashed in the southern Indian Ocean after veering dramatically off course.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been briefed about the missing AirAsia plane, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, adding that U.S. officials will continue to monitor the situation.

CNN's Holly Yan, Yousuf Basil, Steve Almasy, Radina Gigova, Paula Hancocks, Joe Sutton, Euan McKirdy and Larry Register contributed to this report. Journalist Chan Kok Leong also contributed to this report.