An Indonesian investigator confirmed pings have been detected in the Java Sea as search and rescue teams hunt for victims and wreckage from AirAsia Flight QZ8501
The development came 12 days after the Airbus A320 crashed with 162 people on board.
“Yes, we have detected pings,” Suryanto, an investigator from Indonesia’s national transportation safety committee, told the Telegraph.
Santoso Sayogo, another investigator, told reporters: “We received an update from the field that the pinger locator already detected pings.
“We have our fingers crossed it is the black box. Divers need to confirm,” he added.
However, Suryanto said divers had already been able to confirm that the black box was no longer inside the plane’s tail section, where it is stored, suggesting its recovery may be more complicated that previously thought.
The tail was spotted on the seabed on Wednesday, around 18 miles from the presumed crash site.
“If right part of tail section then the black box should be there,” Tony Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, wrote at the time.
Flight QZ8501 from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore lost contact with air traffic controllers around 40 minutes after it took off on the morning of December 28.
By Friday morning, when five more bodies were reportedly brought to shore, a total of 46 victims had been recovered.
However, poor weather and 10ft waves have hampered search and rescue operations.