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Teams looking for the black box flight recorder of downed AirAsia flight QZ8501 have detected signal “pings” from its location beacon, Indonesian officials have said.
The Airbus A320 plane went missing 12 days ago on 28 December around half way into a two hour flight between Indonesia’s second largest city or Surabaya and the city-state of Singapore.
Black box location beacons are battery powered and if maintained properly should last at least a month after their activation on contact with water.
Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, said the black box recorders appeared to no longer be in the plane’s tail.
Pilot and co-pilot of the Indonesian air force keep a look out during search and rescue operations for the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 (AFP PHOTO / Bay ISMOYOBAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images) "We received an update from the field that the pinger locator already detected pings," he told the Reuters news agency.
"We have our fingers crossed it is the black box. Divers need to confirm. Unfortunately it seems it's off from the tail. But the divers need to confirm the position."
The black box flight recorder should contain details of the plane's last moments and shed light on why it crashed.
It contains a battery-powered location beacon to help find it in the event of a crash.
The plane’s tail section was identified on Wednesday after it was spotted by an Indonesian navy patrol boat at the weekend.
It is partly submerged on the sea bed, 30m below sea level, and around 30km away from the plane’s last known location.
Recovery teams were today seen loading specialist balloons onto helicopters, which will be used to try and lift the tail section off the seabed.
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501Show all 28 1 /28In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian rescue personnel unload body bags from a military helicopter in Pangkalan Bun containing bodies recovered from the underwater wreckage of ill-fated AirAsia flight QZ8501
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian rescue personnel unload body bags from a military helicopter in Pangkalan Bun containing bodies recovered from the underwater wreckage of ill-fated AirAsia flight QZ8501
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian national search and rescue agency's (BASARNAS) members prepare the lifting bags for recovery of the fuselage of crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 at Panglima Utar Kumai Harbour in Kumai, Central Borneo
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 A member of Indonesia's search and rescue team walks past wreckage of AirAsia flight QZ8501 recovered at sea and stored in a warehouse for investigators in Kumai, Central Kalimantan on Borneo island
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Members of the National Search and Rescue Agency carry coffins containing bodies of the victims aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 to transfer to Surabaya at the airport in Pangkalan Bun
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian search and rescue personnel pull wreckage of AirAsia flight QZ8501 onto the Crest Onyx ship at sea
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 An Indonesian diver and an official examine the wreckage from AirAsia flight QZ8501 after it was lifted into the Crest Onyx ship at sea
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian rescue personnels carry a wrecked seat of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 airliner recovered from the crash site at Kumai port in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 After nearly a week of searching for the victims, rescue teams have so far recovered 30 bodies
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian Air Force personnel during a search operation for the victims of the crashed AirAsia plane over the Java Sea, 1 January 2015
EPA
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian officers carry coffins with the remains of passengers of the AirAsia flight QZ8501
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 A coffin of a victim of AirAsia flight QZ8501 is transferred from a local hospital in Pangkalan Bun, the town with the nearest airstrip to the crash site of AirAsia flight QZ8501, in Central Kalimantan
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian national search and rescue agency (BASARNAS) members and Indonesian Air Force crew carry a dead body from a helicopter, during search and rescue operations for the crashed AirAsia plane, at Iskandar Military Airport, in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 A vigil for victims of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash in Surabaya, Indonesia
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Members of the Indonesia marines unload their diving equipment
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Indonesian people pray for passengers of the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 in Malang, East Java
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Messages for passengers on board the missing AirAsia flight 8501 are placed on a board at Changi International Airport in Singapore
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Commander of Indonesian Air Force 1st Operational Command Rear Marshall Dwi Putranto, center, shows the airplane parts and a suitcase found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight 8501 disappeared, during a press conference at the airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Captain Irianto's (the pilot of AirAsia QZ8501 flight) relatives and his wife Widiya Sukati (3rd L) Putri gather in his house at Sidoarjo in Surabaya, Indonesia
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Family members of passengers onboard missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501 pray together while waiting for a briefing inside the crisis-centre set up at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya
AFP PHOTO / MANAN VATSYAYANAMANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 An Indonesian Navy airman prays on his plane before searching the waters near Bangka Island for debris from AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Ed Wray/Getty Images
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Family members of passengers onboard the missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501 react after watching news reports showing an unidentified body floating in the Java sea, inside the crisis-centre set up at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 An unidentified object, found during a search and rescue operation by the Indonesian Air Force for the missing AirAsia plane, is seen floating in the ocean off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Borneo, Indonesia
In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Authorities monitor progress in the search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in the Mission Control Center inside the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Relatives hold a picture of the Herumanto Tanus family as they wait for news from the missing AirAsia plane
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 A relative looks to a list of passengers of Air Asia missing plane at Juanda Airport, Surabaya, Indonesia
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Relatives cry and comfort each other
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In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 A child writes a post-it note on a board of well wishes for the passengers of the missing AirAsia flight QZ 8501, outside the relatives' holding area at Changi airport in Singapore
EPA/WALLACE WOON
"The divers are tying the tail with straps and then we will try [to lift it] two ways - floating balloons combined with cranes, so that the tail sector wouldn't be damaged," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said.
He confirmed that looking for victims’ bodies was the main priority ahead of searching for the plane’s black box.
AirAsia’s licence to fly the route taken by QZ8501 has been suspended after authorities said it did not have proper authorisation to run flights on a Sunday, when the accident took place.
The cause of the crash is still unknown but Indonesia’s national weather forecasting service says that seasonal storms are likely to be a factor.
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