Indonesian ships searching for the wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia jet have spotted two large objects on the seabed of Java Sea believed to be part of the doomed flight QZ8501, Indonesia's search and rescue team said over the weekend.

The Airbus was carrying 162 people on board when it crashed into the sea while enroute from Indonesia to Singapore last Sunday. Around 30 bodies have so far been retrieved from the shallow waters.

Like Us on Facebook

Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the Indonesia search and rescue team, said they have detected two objects underwater at 30 meters depth. He added that they are currently operating the remotely-operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) to take pictures of the objects.

Soelistyo, in a press conference in Jakarta, said the first object measured 9.4 meters by 4.8 meters by 0.4 meters while the second measured 7.2 meters by 0.5.

Soelistyo said his team was finding it hard to operate the ROVs because of the large waves in the area which have stalled their operations for the past days but despite this, divers were still preparing to search for the objects.

Several countries have deployed their maritime and air assets to help out Indonesia locate bodies of the victims and the flight's QZ8501 wreckage and its blackbox recorders.

The multinational task force consisting of ships, helicopters and planes have been scouring the seabed of the northern Java Sea and the sea of Borneo in search of more bodies. No survivors have been found.

The large objects were spotted just before midnight Friday and the search teams have been trying to get images using the ROVs, , Soelistyo said in the press conference.

The search teams have focused their mission on recovering bodies of the crash victims.  Last Friday, 21 bodies have been recovered by the divers bringing the total number of  bodies recovered to 30.

Soelistyo said that although they have found small pieces of the aircraft and debris, there has been no sign yet of the crucial flight data recorder which would reveal the events that transpired in the cockpit, minutes before the plane crashed.

The team commander said they have widened their search area as the strong currents have pulled  the debris away to more than 200 nautical miles. 

TagsAirAsia, Flight 8501