Indonesia jet 'black boxes' found

Parts of the plane have been found

A US ship has located the "black box" flight recorders of the Indonesian plane that went missing on 1 January, the US embassy said.

The USNS Mary Sears, which has been helping hunt for the missing Boeing 737, detected a distinctive signal from the boxes on the ocean floor.

The Adam Air flight, which went missing halfway through its flight from Java to Sulawesi, had 102 people on board.

Parts of the plane have been washed up off the west coast of Sulawesi.

The Mary Sears located signals "on the same frequency" as the flight recorders of the missing plane, the US embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.

The ship also "detected heavy debris scattered over a wide area", which is being analysed to verify whether it is the missing aircraft, the statement added.

HUNT FOR MISSING JET 1 Jan: Plane goes missing 2 Jan: Reports that wreckage has been found prove false 3 Jan: Search resumes 5 Jan: Search area is expanded 8 Jan: Metal spotted in sea 10 Jan: US ship joins search 11 Jan: Fishermen find debris 25 Jan: Flight recorders found Indonesia's transport perils

Information from the flight recorders could help investigators determine the cause of the crash.

Officials said the government would now have to decide whether to try and retrieve the boxes from the ocean bed.

"We do not have the technology to retrieve the black boxes," Setio Rahardjo, chairman of the National Commission on Transport Safety told AFP news agency.

"Assuming we have the funds, then we have to ask for a country who has sophisticated technology, such as the US," he added.

Meanwhile, the search has entered the fourth week in the Java Sea for a ferry which sank at the end of December - about 300 passengers are still missing.