After hauling part of the tail section from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 up from the floor of the Java Sea, search teams believe they have found the black box flight recorders.  Now, all they need is a break in what has been a couple of weeks of bad conditions to actually get down there and get them.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders are believed to be buried on the seabed underneath the aircraft's debris.  Divers are attempting to retrieve them.  Three different ships detected “pings” from the black boxes at two distinct locations about three and a half kilometers from where the aircraft’s tail was discovered.

“The two are close to each other, just about 20 meters (apart),” said Indonesian coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Indroyono Soesilo.  “Hopefully, they are the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.”

The Airbus A320-300 took off from Surabaya, Indonesia on 28 December, on a Sunday on which it was not properly licensed to fly.  The route to Singapore took it directly into an incredibly powerful storm.  The plane apparently crashed before the pilot got an answer to his request to climb to a higher altitude above the inclement weather.