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 Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java
Sea on Dec. 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from
Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were
no survivors among the 162 people on board.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery, with hopes centering on
the so-called black boxes - the flight data recorder and the cockpit
voice recorder - providing vital clues. The plane which crashed was
an Airbus A320-200, which carries the recorders near the tail
section.
The tail of the plane was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea
bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane's last known location at a
depth of around 28-32 meters.
"After we found the tail, our plan is to do everything step by
step," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue
agency, told a news conference in Jakarta. "First we will (check
whether) the black box is still at its place, in the tail, or if it
has detached."
 A total of 84 divers are in ships in the vicinity and teams began
searching the jet's tail at 0645 local time (6.45 p.m. EST), with
visibility poor and strong currents still impeding efforts,
Soelistyo added.
Should diving teams confirm the location of the recorders, the tail
will probably be plucked out of the sea using a crane capable of
lifting 70 tonnes.
Ships with acoustic "pinger locators" designed to pick up signals
from the black boxes were at the location but were no longer being
used, in a possible sign of confidence among Indonesian officials
that the recorders will be found soon.
Two Japanese ships that were part of the international effort to
find the plane would now leave the mission on Friday, Soelistyo
added.
"Now that the tail is confirmed, we are confident," Mardjono
Siswosuwarno, the main investigator of the National Transportation
Safety Committee, told Reuters late on Wednesday. "In my opinion,
the pinger locators are no longer necessary to finding the black
box."
Forty bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the
surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves
have been hampering divers' efforts to reach larger pieces of
suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.
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In Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town closest to the crash
site, Indonesian armed forces chief Moeldoko said he would
personally lead any mission to lift the jet's tail.
Weather agency officials warned on Thursday that although weather
conditions at search areas had improved over the last two days, it
was likely to worsen from Friday onwards.
Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia budget
group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since
the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier's
Surabaya-Singapore license, saying it only had permission to fly the
route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight QZ8501
took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing
on the accident.
AirAsia has said it is cooperating fully with the ministry's
investigations. That investigation would be completed by Friday
evening, the transport ministry said.
(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Pangkalan Bun, Gayatri
Suroyo, Wilda Asmarini, Eveline Danubrata, Nilufar Rizki and
Charlotte Greenfield in Jakarta; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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