Tragic AirAsia Flight QZ8501 'exploded' before it crashed into the sea

An AirAsia passenger jet that crashed into the sea killing everyone on board likely exploded before it hit the water, experts have said.

Flight QZ8501 crashed with 162 passengers and crew on board two weeks ago after suffering a critical cabin damage probably caused by the sudden change in air pressure.

Since then, salvage experts have been studying the wreckage and today they revealed their findings - that the plane broke apart as it struggled to cope with the steep descent.

S.B. Supriyadi, a director with the Indonesian national search and rescue agency, said: "My analysis is, based on the wreckage found and other findings, the plane experienced an explosion before it hit the water.

"The cabin was pressurised and before the pressure of the cabin could be adjusted, it went down - boom. That explosion was heard in the area.”

He said the left side of the plane seemed to have disintegrated, pointing to a change in pressure that could have caused an explosion.

But top Indonesian state transport safety investigator Santoso Sayogo disagreed, responding: “There is no data to support that kind of theory.”

The news comes after the Indonesian Navy revealed a number of its divers had retrieved the plane’s black box.

Although experts were now attempting to read the data on the box, they warned that this could take up to a month to get a complete reading of what was recorded,

The flight lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on December 28 last year - less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

So far, 48 bodies have been recovered but efforts to find the remaining ones have been hampered by continuing bad weather - something experts thought may have played a factor in the crash.

Recovery experts have said that they believe many bodies were still trapped in the cabin, and that this was now a priority for the salvage teams.