Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said the carrier is trialing the use of constant data uploads from flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, aka black boxes, of its aircraft.

Speaking at the recent customer launch of the first Airbus A350, Al Baker said, “We want to … introduce full-time black box data uploads across all our aircraft,” he said, adding that the airline’s management was convinced it should be a mandatory technology across all IATA-compliant carriers.

Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, said a sonar scan had revealed an object measuring 10 meters by four meters by 2.5 meters on the sea floor.

"They suspect it is the body of the plane. There is a big possibility that the black box is near the body of the plane," Supriyadi told Reuters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort on Borneo.

"A team of divers has already been sent to prove this data. The diving operation has started," he said.

Examination of their last training records and check rides
made it clear that the copilots had not been trained for manual aeroplane handling
of approach to stall and stall recovery at high altitude

Three Indonesian ships had detected signals from two different locations about 3.5km (2 miles) from where the aircraft's tail was discovered, Co-ordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Indroyono Soesilo said.

"The two are close to each other, just about 20 metres [apart],'" Mr Soesilo said. "Hopefully, they are the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder."

The black box is currently wedged between pieces of wreckage making it difficult for divers to retrieve, and due to time constraints, retrieval will take place on Monday morning, said Mr Budiono. The search crew will attempt to retrieve the black box by moving parts of wreckage to loosen it from where it is currently stuck, and if that fails, the same balloon method used to lift the tail of the plane will be employed.