A research ship equipped with a black box locator was being deployed to the presumed crash site of AirAsia flight QZ8501 in the Java Sea, Indonesian search officials said Thursday, according to dpa. The Baruna Jaya research ship is also equipped with a sonar device that can detect metal and provide three-dimensional underwater images with the hope of finding the plane's fuselage, the Search and Rescue Agency's operations chief Tatang Zaenudin said in a press conference. Two Indonesian military aircraft and a South Korean plane were already in the search zone, Zaenudin said. "We hope that searches from the sea and the air will yield more findings," Zaenudin said. AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 crashed Sunday with 162 passengers and crew on board, halfway through a two-hour flight between Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, and Singapore. Two objects believed to be parts of the plane have been plucked out of the ocean, an Indonesian broadcaster reported Thursday.
