Search teams scouring the Java Sea for the
wreckage of AirAsia flight QZ8501 have found
"two large objects", Indonesian officials say.
Search and rescue agency chief Bambang
Soelistyo said a remotely operated underwater
vehicle was being lowered to take pictures.
However, bad weather and heavy seas continue
to hamper operations.
The jet disappeared with 162 people on board
while flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to
Singapore last Sunday.
So far 30 bodies have been recovered in the
search. No survivors have been found and the
main sections of the Airbus A320 have not been
retrieved.
Most bodies are thought to have been trapped in
the plane's fuselage.
'Confident'
Mr Soelistyo said on Saturday that the large
objects had been detected by sonar from an
Indonesian navy ship.
"We found oil slicks and huge objects at 23:40
(16:40 GMT) last night. I am confident these are
parts of the missing AirAsia plane that we are
looking for," he said.
He said the larger of the objects was 10 metres
by five (32ft by 16ft) but that strong currents
made operating the underwater vehicle difficult.
"As I speak we are lowering an ROV (remotely
operated underwater vehicle) to get an actual
picture of the objects detected on the sea floor.
All are at the depth of 30 metres."
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from
the forward operating base in Pangkalan Bun that
it seems this could be the breakthrough search
teams have been hoping for.
A flotilla of ships, including two from the US navy,
are converging on the site where the objects were
located and preparing to put divers into the
water.
The cause of the crash is not yet known.
Specialist equipment has arrived to the search for
the plane's "black box" flight recorders, though
officials say no signals have been picked up yet.
Numbered coffins
In another development, it has emerged that
AirAsia did not have official permission to fly the
Surabaya-Singapore route on Sunday - the day of
the crash - but was licensed on four other days
of the week.
The Indonesian authorities are suspending the
company's flights on this route with immediate
effect pending an investigation, a transport
ministry statement said.
Officials have said the plane was travelling at
32,000ft when it requested to climb to 38,000ft
to avoid bad weather.
Some investigators are reported to believe that
the plane may have gone into an aerodynamic
stall as the pilot climbed steeply.
There were 137 adult passengers, 17 children and
one infant, along with two pilots and five crew, on
the plane - the majority Indonesian.
Four people have been identified so far: Hayati
Lutfiah Hamid, Grayson Herbert Linaksita, Kevin
Alexander Soetjipto and Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi .
After bodies are recovered from the sea they are
transported in numbered coffins for identification
in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city.
AirAsia previously had an excellent safety record,
with no fatal accidents involving its aircraft.

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