Developing | No victim from crashed AirAsia plane was wearing life jacket, Indonesian official says

An Indonesian search and rescue official said today that none of the bodies recovered so far from the crashed AirAsia jet had been wearing a life jacket.

"There is no victim that has been found wearing a life jacket," said Tatang Zaenudin, deputy head of operations at the national search and rescue agency.

"We found a body at 8.20am and a life jacket at 10.32am so there was a time difference. This is the latest information we have," he added.

The same official said earlier that one of the recovered bodies had been wearing a life jacket, prompting speculations that those on board had at least some time before the aircraft hit the water, or after it hit the water and before it sank.

The pilots did not issue a distress signal before the plane disappeared. The flight had failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic.

Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object about 30 to 50 metres beneath the water's surface, near where debris and bodies were found.

But bad weather and strong currents were sending wreckage drifting far from the crash site and hampering search efforts.