text: JAKARTA/PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia Search teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed with 162 people on board have found four large parts of the plane on the sea bed, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency said on Saturday. 
   
   A multi-national task force of ships, planes and helicopters have been scouring the northern Java Sea and coastline of southern Borneo to recover the bodies of victims and locate the wreck of Flight QZ8501 and its black box flight recorders. 
   
   "We've found four big parts from the plane we're looking for," search and rescue agency chief Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta. 
   
   The breakthrough came as authorities said that Indonesia AirAsia had violated the terms of its licence for the Surabaya to Singapore route by flying on a Sunday, the day the Airbus A320-200 plunged into the Java Sea, and announced they would investigate the carrier's other schedules. 
   
   One large object was pinpointed by a ship searching during the night, Soelistyo said, and three more, the largest of which was around 18 metres long, were located on Saturday. 
   
   Another official, Supriyadi, who is coordinating the operation from the port of Pangkalan Bun in Borneo, said earlier that poor visibility had hampered efforts to capture images of the objects with underwater remote operating vehicles (ROVs). 
   
   "The visibility is only two metres," he said. "It's cloudy, making it difficult for the cameras to detect." 
   
   Divers, including a team of Russian specialists who just arrived in Pangkalan Bun, may be able to investigate the suspected wreckage on Sunday if the weather improves, officials said. 
   
   NO SURVIVORS 
   
   No survivors have been found from the crash, which happened about 40 minutes after the plane took off from Indonesia's second largest city in an area known for intense tropical thunderstorms during the current monsoon season. 
   
   A report from Indonesia's weather bureau said it was likely the plane had flown into bad weather which would have been difficult to avoid, and that it was possible this had caused ice to form on its engines. 
   
   "Based on the available data on the last received location of the aircraft, the weather was a factor in causing the accident," the weather bureau said. 
   
   Indonesian authorities on Friday questioned whether the pilot had followed correct weather procedures, and later suspended Indonesia AirAsia's Surabaya to Singapore flights, saying the airline's operating licence only permitted flights on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 
   
   Djoko Murdjatmodjo, Indonesia's acting Director General of Air Transportation, said on Saturday that the Transport Ministry would investigate other routes used by the carrier, which flies from at least 15 Indonesian destinations. 
   
   "We are going to investigate all AirAsia flight schedules. Hopefully we can start on next Monday," he said. "It is possible AirAsia's licence in Indonesia might be revoked," he added. 
   
   Sunu Widyatmoko, Indonesia AirAsia chief, told reporters the airline, which is 49-percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia, would cooperate with the inquiry. 
   
   "The government has suspended our flights from Surabaya to Singapore and back," he said. "They are doing the evaluation process. AirAsia will cooperate fully with the evaluation." 
   
   Much effort has focused on finding the mostly Indonesian victims of the crash. Thirty bodies have been recovered from the sea, although rescue official Supriyadi, who like many Indonesians uses just one name, said it was unlikely more would be found floating. 
   
   "Because we're already in the seventh day ... the chances are they have all sunk," he said. "There's a possibility they'll be found on beaches." 
   
   Small pieces of the aircraft and other debris have also been found, but there has been no sign of the crucial voice and flight data recorders - the so-called black boxes that investigators hope will unravel the sequence of events in the cockpit during the doomed jet's final minutes. 
   
   WEATHER FACTOR 
   
   The cause of the crash, the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia group, remains unexplained. 
   
   The plane was flying at 32,000 ft (9,753 metres) and the pilot had asked to climb to 38,000 ft just before contact was lost. When air traffic controllers granted permission to fly at 34,000 ft a few minutes later there was no response. 
   
   A source close to the investigation said radar data appeared to show the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the A320's limits. 
   
   Hadi Mustofa Djuraid, a transport ministry official, told reporters on Friday that authorities were also investigating the possibility that the pilot did not ask for a weather report from the meteorological agency at the time of take-off. 
   
   Indonesia AirAsia said in a statement that weather reports were printed in hard copy at the operations control centre at all its flight hubs, including Surabaya, and taken by the pilot to the aircraft before each flight. 
   
   An AirAsia spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the pilot had followed the procedure described in the statement. 
   
   (Additional reporting by Adriana Nina Kusuma, Cindy Silviana, Kanupriya Kapoor, Michael Taylor, Charlotte Greenfield and Nicholas Owen in JAKARTA; Writing by Alex Richardson; Editing by Michael Perry and Raissa Kasolowsky) ||||| AirAsia Flight 8501 did not have permission to fly to Singapore on the day it crashed into the Java Sea, transport officials have said as search chiefs said they had found “two big objects” believed to be from the missing plane. 
   
   AirAsia’s Airbus 320 disappeared around 40 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian city of Surabaya last Sunday morning with 162 people on board. 
   
   However, the company was only authorised to fly that route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Indonesia’s transport ministry said. 
   
   "It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that's the problem," Djoko Murjatmodjo, the head of air transport, told AFP on Saturday. 
   
   It was not immediately clear why AirAsia had been flying that day if it did not have permission. All the company’s flights from Surabaya to Singapore have now been ordered to stop. The transport ministry has announced a full review of all AirAsia flights. 
   
   Sunu Widyatmoko, the chief executive of AirAsia’s Indonesian subsidiary, confirmed government officials had suspended the airline’s permission to fly from Surabaya to Singapore but declined to comment further. 
   
   Meanwhile search teams operating in the Java Sea reported detecting an oil slick and “two big objects” believed to be parts of the plan’s main fuselage. 
   
   “With the oil slick that we found and the discovery of the two big objects, I can confirm that this is the big part of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for all this time,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told reporters. 
   
   Teams of divers were expected to explore those objects on Saturday, weather permitting. 
   
   As the search entered its sixth day, with around 60 vessels and 20 aircraft now involved, there was renewed speculation that “extreme weather” had contributed to south-east Asia’s third major airline catastrophe of 2014. 
   
   A member of the Indonesian Red Cross walks among coffins for the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 at the main hospital in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia (Tatan Syuflana/AP) 
   
   A 14-page "meteorological analysis" from Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said one likely scenario was that icing, caused by bad weather, had “damaged” the Airbus’s engines. 
   
   "This is however just one analysis of what likely happened based on available meteorological data, and is not the final determination on the cause of the incident,” said the report, quoted by Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper. 
   
   Tony Fernandes, the AirAsia chief, has hinted extreme weather played a major role in the tragedy. “What we are beginning to see is that there were some very unique weather conditions,” he said earlier this week. 
   
   “I continue to have full faith in our operations in Indonesia and elsewhere,” he added. 
   
   As Indonesian rescue teams flew the bodies of 12 more victims back to Surabaya for identification and burial, heart-breaking reports emerged about a 15-year-old Indonesian girl who lost her entire family in the tragedy. 
   
   Family members of passengers react after watching news reports showing an unidentified body floating in the Java sea (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images) 
   
   Chiara Natasya Tanus, a Surabaya-born student who was attending school in Singapore, lost both parents and both brothers - aged 17 and 9 - in the crash. They had been coming to visit her for New Year's Eve and when they did not arrive at Sinagpore airport as expected last Sunday she returned home to her dormitory. 
   
   “We were supposed to have the best time in Singapore - we planned to spend the rest of holidays together,” the orphaned teenager told Indonesia’s Jawa Pos newspaper. 
   
   “I was so excited. I was looking forward to showing my dormitory to my family,” she added. ||||| PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian officials said Saturday that they were confident wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 had been located after sonar equipment detected four massive objects on the ocean floor. 
   
   Indonesian Navy personnel lay plastic bags containing the bodies of victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 found at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Indonesian officials... (Associated Press) 
   
   Indonesian military personnel sit with a coffin containing the body of a victim of AirAsia Flight 8501 in an ambulance upon arrival at Juanda Naval Airbase in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Indonesian Navy personnel carry a plastic bag containing the dead body of a passenger of AirAsia Flight 8501 at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Indonesian officials... (Associated Press) 
   
   Bags containing dead bodies of the passengers of AirAsia Flight 8501 are lifted onto Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Indonesian... (Associated Press) 
   
   Indonesian's Navy personnel prepare the dead bodies of the passengers of AirAsia Flight 8501, on Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh, to transfer them by helicopters at sea off the coast of Pangkalan... (Associated Press) 
   
   Members of the National Search and Rescue Agency carry coffins containing bodies of the victims aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 to transfer to Surabaya at the airport in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Saturday,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Indonesian's Navy personnel carry a bag containing a dead body of a passenger of AirAsia Flight 8501 at sea off the coast of Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Indonesian officials were... (Associated Press) 
   
   National Search And Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) personnel carry the body of a victim on board the ill-fated AirAsia Flight 8501, from a helicopter upon arrival at the airport in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia,... (Associated Press) 
   
   The biggest piece, measuring 18 meters (59 feet) long and 5.4 meters (18 feet) wide, appeared to be part of the jet's body, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency. 
   
   Though strong currents and big surf have prevented divers from entering waters to get a visual of the suspected fuselage, officials are hopeful they will find many of the 162 passengers and crew who were aboard the plane still strapped in their seats inside. 
   
   So far, after nearly a week of searching, only 30 bodies have been found floating in the choppy waters. 
   
   The Airbus A320 crashed Dec. 28, halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore. Minutes before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control that he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic. 
   
   It remains unclear what caused the plane to plunge into the Java Sea, though bad weather appears to have been a factor, according to a 14-page report released by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency. 
   
   "Flight 8501 appears to have been trapped in bad weather that would have been difficult to avoid," the report said. 
   
   While the plane's black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — have yet to be located, the discovery of the wreckage, especially if it is largely intact, would greatly benefit the investigation. 
   
   The objects on the seafloor were discovered Friday and Saturday, and an Indonesian Geological Survey vessel was used to assess their dimensions, Soelistyo said. 
   
   In addition to what appeared to be a significant part of the plane's body, chunks of debris found in the target search area measured up to 12 meters (39 feet) long. 
   
   Other suspected plane parts were seen scattered on beaches during an aerial survey, Soelistyo said. 
   
   Indonesian authorities announced the grounding of AirAsia flights from Surabaya to Singapore, with the Transport Ministry saying the airline did not have a permit to fly on Sundays. However, Singapore's Civil Aviation Authority said Saturday that from its end, the airline had been approved to fly the route daily. 
   
   AirAsia, which began operations in 2001, quickly becoming one of the region's most popular low-cost carriers, said it was reviewing the suspension. The crash was the airline's first. 
   
   Strong currents and towering waves as high as 4 meters (13 feet) have slowed recovery efforts, scattering bodies and debris in all directions. The discoveries so far include an emergency exit door and slide, as well as a backpack with food and a camera inside. 
   
   As part of the investigation into the crash, autopsies will be carried out on some of the bodies, including the pilot and co-pilot, whose remains have not yet been recovered, said Budiyono, who heads East Java's Disaster Victim Identification unit and, like many Indonesians, uses only one name. 
   
   Generally, aviation experts say the more passengers, luggage and parts of the aircraft that remain intact, the more likely the plane hit the water in one piece. That would signal problems like a mechanical error or a stall instead of a mid-air breakup due to an explosion or sudden depressurization. 
   
   For family members, the wait has been agonizing, with local media covering every development and theory, many of which have proved to be untrue — including a false report that a body was found wearing a life jacket, which would have indicated passengers had time to prepare for the impact or miraculously were able to put them on after hitting the water. 
   
   With more corpses arriving in Surabaya, some relatives said they were simply worn out. But they were encouraged by reports that parts of the plane had been detected and hoped that everyone on board would be retrieved. 
   
   "Let's hope the news is true," said Ongko Gunawan, whose sister was on the flight with her husband and their child. "We need to move on." 
   
   Vessels involved in the search for debris included at least eight sophisticated navy ships from Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and the U.S. equipped with sonars for scouring the seabed to pinpoint the all-important black boxes and the wreckage. 
   
   A second U.S. Navy ship arrived Saturday to help in the search. 
   
   The hope, officials say, is that the body of the plane will still be largely intact, speeding the investigation. 
   
   "Many of the passengers believed to be still trapped inside the plane's fuselage and could be discovered soon," Supriyadi said. "God willing, we will complete this operation next week." 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini, Ali Kotarumalos, Margie Mason and Robin McDowell in Jakarta, Eileen Ng in Surabaya, Indonesia, and Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.
target: – Search teams in Indonesia may have found the main fuselage of the AirAsia plane where most of the remaining victims and the plane's black boxes are expected to be. Authorities found "four big parts of the plane we're looking for," says the official in charge of the search in the Java Sea, reports Reuters. The biggest of the pieces is about 59 feet long and 18 feet wide, reports AP. The pieces have only been detected, not recovered, and divers hope conditions will permit them to reach the objects tomorrow. So far, only 30 of 162 bodies have been recovered, and most of the victims are believed to be still strapped in their seats. Authorities also said today that AirAsia was in violation of its license by flying to Singapore on a Sunday, the day of the crash, reports the Telegraph. As a result, the airline might have its license revoked in Indonesia. There's still no conclusions yet in what caused the crash, but theories continue to center on stormy conditions. "Flight 8501 appears to have been trapped in bad weather that would have been difficult to avoid," says a report by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.