Black box signals from AirAsia plane detected again

Signals, possibly from the crashed AirAsia flight, have been detected again by three Indonesian ships, an official said Sunday.

The pings were detected one kilometre east of the location, where the broken tail was lifted from the Java sea off Indonesia's Central Kalimantan coast Saturday, reported Xinhua citing top search and rescue official Suryadi B. Supriyadi.

Divers would be deployed to check the signals, the official said, adding the wreckage of the plane's tail was estimated to arrive at the Kumai port in Pangkalan Bun town, closest place to the crash site, by noon.

Ping signals, possibly from black boxes of the Airbus A320-200, were earlier detected by Indonesian search ships Friday, some 300 metres from the location where the tail was discovered. But they were yet to be confirmed.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as black boxes, are crucial to help determine the cause of the air crash. The devices, stored in the rear of the aircraft, can still send signals for two weeks before the battery exhausts.

Flight QZ8501, with 162 people onboard, went down in the Java Sea near the Karimata Strait during its flight from Surabaya to Singapore Dec 28.

A multinational search operation is underway to retrieve wreckage and bodies of the victims, joined by ships and planes from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the US, Japan, Australia, Russia, South Korea and China.

A total of 48 bodies have been recovered so far, of them 27 identified.