Tail of AirAsia Flight 8501 Located

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's search and rescue chief says divers and an unmanned underwater vehicle have spotted the tail of the missing AirAsia plane in the Java Sea, the first confirmed sighting of any wreckage 11 days after Flight 8501 disappeared with 162 people on board.

Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters Wednesday that searchers were able to get a photograph of the debris.

The find is particularly important because the all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, are located in the aircraft's tail.

Soelistyo says the top priority remains recovering bodies and the black boxes. So far, 40 corpses have been found.

The Airbus A320 went down Dec. 28, halfway through a two-hour flight between Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya and Singapore, killing everyone on board. It is not clear what caused the crash, but bad weather is believed to be a contributing factor.

Just before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic. No distress signal was issued.

Finding the black boxes will be key to the investigation. They provide essential information including the plane’s vertical and horizontal speeds along with engine temperature and final conversations between the captain and co-pilot. The ping-emitting beacons still have about 20 days before their batteries go dead, but high surf had prevented the deployment of ships that drag “ping” locators.

Sonar-equipped ships involved in the massive international hunt have also identified what they believe to be the fuselage of the plane. Several other big chunks have been found though no visual confirmation has been received yet.