Divers find both AirAsia black boxes

Divers have found the second black box from the AirAsia plane that crashed more than two weeks ago, but they have not yet been able to free it from debris on the floor of the Java Sea.

Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, the operation coordinator at the National Search and Rescue Agency, says the cockpit voice recorder was located Monday just hours after officials announced the data flight recorder had been brought to the surface.

He says the cockpit voice recorder is stuck under heavy wreckage, and divers are working to lift it.

Hours earlier, Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said the flight data recorder was brought to the surface by four divers early Monday morning.

The flight data recorder was found under part of the plane's wing, he said.

The cockpit voice and flight data recorders are vital to understanding what brought Flight 8501 down on Dec. 28, killing all 162 people on board.

Divers began zeroing in on the site where one of the black boxes was found on Sunday, after three Indonesian ships picked up intense pings from the area, but they were unable to see it due to strong currents and poor visibility, said Supriyadi.

He earlier said the black box was lodged in debris at a depth of about 100 feet.

The flight data recorder will be taken to Jakarta, the capital, for analysis. It could take up to two weeks to download its recorded data, said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the National Committee for Safety Transportation.

Officials recovered the aircraft's tail on Saturday, the first major wreckage excavated from the crash site. They were hopeful the black boxes were still inside, but learned they had detached when the plane crashed into the sea.

Search efforts have been consistently hampered by big waves and powerful currents created by the region's rainy season. Silt and sand, along with river runoff, have created blinding conditions for divers.

So far, only 48 bodies have been recovered. Many believe most of the corpses are likely still inside the main cabin, which has yet to be located.

The last contact the pilots had with air traffic control, about halfway into their two-hour journey from Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, to Singapore, indicated they were entering stormy weather. They asked to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet  to avoid threatening clouds, but were denied permission because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the plane dropped off the radar. No distress signal was sent.

Until investigators can examine the black box recorders, the cause of the crash will remain a mystery, but BMKG, Indonesia's meteorological agency, has said icy conditions may have damaged the aircraft's engines. The area where the plane was lost is known for intense seasonal storms.

Al Jazeera with wire services