AirAsia QZ8501 Search Hampered By Bad Weather and Rough Seas

Search and rescue teams are racing against time and weather to retrieve more bodies from the ill-fated AirAsia QZ8501 plane that crashed Sunday off the coast of Borneo after it lost contact some 40 minutes upon takeoff from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore.

Only seven bodies – four men and three women - were recovered so far, as strong waves and rough seas hampered the search. Some of the bodies were fully clothed, indicating that the plane, an Airbus A320-200, was intact when it hit water, and that it might have suffered an aerodynamic stall.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the operation would continue and that his government's priority was retrieving more bodies.

"The weather was really challenging in the field, with waves up to five meters high, wind reaching 40 kph, and heavy rains, especially in the search area," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said.

Two of the recovered bodies – marked 001 and 002 pending identification – were placed in flower-bedecked coffins and brought by air force plane to Surabaya where victims' relatives held vigil while awaiting for news of their loved ones.

Surabaya authorities prepared to identify bodies, including collecting DNA samples from relatives.

Ships and planes have been scouring the Borneo sea for the missing Airbus since Sunday. Search and rescue operations are concentrated to where the debris has been found -- in the Karimata Strait, about 110 nautical miles southwest of Indonesian city of Pangkalan Bun, AirAsia said.

Rescuers, including international teams, believed they found the plane on the Strait's sea floor, after a sonar scan detected a large, dark object beneath the waters. "We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly," Soelistyo said.

The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder that could provide clues as to the cause of the air disaster have yet to be found.

Flight QZ8501 was carrying 155 passengers and seven crew members. The majority were Indonesians, while others were citizens of Britain, France, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.