By Ainur Romah
JAKARTA
Indonesia's director general of marine transport confirmed late Sunday that AirAsia QZ8501's black box has been found, authorities said in a press release.
Tonny Budiono said that navy divers from the KN Jadayat had discovered the box at a depth of 30-32 meters.
He added that the box is currently wedged between pieces of wreckage.
"This placement makes it very difficult for divers to retrieve it," he said, but they will attempt to claim the box Monday morning due to fading light.
Authorities said that a crew of divers will attempt recovery by maneuvering parts of wreckage to loosen the box from where it is currently stuck, and -- if that fails -- the same balloon method used to lift the tail of the plane from the water will be employed.
Unggul Priyanto, the head of the country's Technology Application and Study Agency -- which had been tasked with locating the box -- told The Anadolu Agency on Sunday that the signs are that the fuselage of the plane and the black box are in the same area.
There is "an indication of an object that is 12 x 4 x 2.5 meters. Allegedly it is the main body," SB Supriyadi, the director of operations of National Search and Rescue (NSR), earlier told Kompas.com.
The NSR, however, later said that the black box itself had not been found, but "ping" signals had been detected. It clarified that the engine and a wing had been discovered.
There was no explanation as to the discrepancy between the two reports.
Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control with 162 people on board during bad weather Dec. 28 while flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.
NSR chief Bambang Soelistyo confirmed that as of Sunday 48 bodies had been recovered from the Java Sea off Borneo, and the plane's tail had been lifted and given to the National Transportation Safety Committee.
Search teams expect the plane's fuselage to contain more bodies.
