Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane
carrying 162 people have pulled dozens of bodies
and pieces of wreckage from the sea off the coast of
Borneo

Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus
A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the
Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The navy on Tuesday said 40 bodies had been
recovered, Reuters news agency reported. Navy
spokesman Manahan Simorangkir, however, told AFP just three bodies had been recovered and the larger figure had been a miscommunication.

An air force plane saw a "shadow" on the seabed
believed to be that of the missing Flight QZ8501,
National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bambang
Soelistyo told a news conference in Jakarta.

Indonesian officials have said that three pieces of
airplane debris sighted off Kalimantan coast in the
Java Sea were likely to be from missing AirAsia jet.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the head of the
search and rescue mission, said that definitive
debris, including an exit door from the Flight QZ8501 was found during the search.

Indonesia's national broadcaster reported sighting
bodies floating in the waters, and cited Indonesian
officials as saying that there was a shadow of the
plane underneath the sea.

"The debris is red and white," Djoko Murjatmodjo,
acting director-general of air transportation at the
Transportation Ministry, told reporters. "We are
checking if it's debris from the aircraft. It's probably
from the body of the aircraft."

Flight QZ8501 went missing after air traffic
controllers lost contact with the aircraft about 45
minutes after it left Juanda international airport at
Surabaya in East Java at 5.20am on Sunday (22:20
GMT Saturday).

Shortly before disappearing, AirAsia said the pilot of the plane had asked permission from air traffic
control to change course and climb above bad
weather in an area noted for severe thunderstorms.

The search for the plane carrying 162 people, is now in its third day. The airline said most of the passengers on board Flight QZ8501 were Indonesians, with three South Koreans and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France.

The aircraft was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a unit of Malaysian-based AirAsia which dominates
Southeast Asia's booming low-cost airline market.
AirAsia said the missing jet last underwent
maintenance on November 16. The company has
never suffered a fatal accident.