Divers identified the location of the black box and marked the area for retrieval, Transport Ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said today, without specifying the exact location.
But they failed to retrieve it because it was stuck under debris from the main body of the plane, it added.
“The navy divers in Jadayat state boat have succeeded in finding a very important instrument, the black box of AirAsia QZ8501,” said Tonny Budiono, a senior ministry official, adding that it was at coordinate 03.37.21 South/109.42.42 East at a depth of between 30 to 32 metres.
"The black box is trapped under parts of fuselage. We will slowly move these obstacles out of the way, but if it does not succeed, we will lift the fuselage parts using a balloon like what we did to the plane's tail," Budiono said, adding that a small buoy marker had been placed at the location to make retrieval on Monday easier.
Strong ping signals were being picked up by three vessels involved in the search in the Java Sea, S.B Supriyadi, a director with the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters.
If weather conditions are conducive, “hopefully the vessels will recover the black box tomorrow morning,” said National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Santoso Sayogo.“The coordinates show the bottom of the sea (in that location) is sand so the divers should easily be able to see it.”
If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged
Those signals are coming from the seabed less than one kilometre from where the tail of the plane was found, Malaysian Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar said in a post on Twitter. Malaysia’s Navy is helping in the search for flight QZ8501 that crashed into the sea two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board.
But Supriyadi said powerful currents had again frustrated military divers in their search and they had to call off their efforts before sunset without reaching the origin of the signals, about 30m underwater.
“We sent divers to three spots, and they went down twice, but there is no result. They couldn’t find anything. The undercurrent was very strong,” Supriyadi said.