PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — Indonesia’s search and rescue chief said that divers and an unmanned underwater vehicle spotted the tail of the missing AirAsia plane in the Java Sea, the first confirmed sighting of any wreckage, 11 days after Flight 8501 disappeared with 162 people on board.
Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters Wednesday that searchers were able to get a photograph of the debris.
The find is particularly important because the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, are in the tail.
Strong currents had forced Indonesia to expand the search area for the AirAsia plane Tuesday, as rough seas and bad weather made it difficult to reach suspected wreckage of the fuselage on the ocean floor.
Three more bodies were retrieved Tuesday, bringing the total to 40. But there are concerns that it will become harder to find the remaining corpses.
‘‘Time is of the essence,’’ said the National Search and Rescue Agency’s director of operations, Suryadi B. Supriyadi.
The search operation will expand by about 70 square miles, Soelistyo said.
He said the USS Fort Worth detected two large objects on the seabed at a depth of 92 feet.
Seven objects have been located on the ocean floor that could be pieces of the fuselage.
Two divers plunged into the waters during a break in the rough weather Tuesday but were unable to do much because of strong underwater currents, Soelistyo said.
Dozens of new airlines have popped up in Indonesia in recent years to meet the industry’s booming demand, but a string of deadly accidents has raised concerns about safety.
Specialists say that poor maintenance, rule-bending, and a shortage of trained personnel are largely to blame. Infrastructure has failed to keep pace with exploding demand.
The country’s transportation ministry said it was cracking down after it was discovered that Flight 8501 did not have a permit to fly between Surabaya, Indonesia, and Singapore on the day of the crash. It suspended two ministry officials and five workers at Surabaya’s main airport Tuesday for allowing the flight. Others are still under investigation.
All AirAsia flights on that route have been canceled.
It is not known what caused the Airbus A320 to crash into the Java Sea, though Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency said bad weather appears to have been a factor. Just before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic. No distress signal was issued.
No pings have been detected from the plane’s all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders. High waves have prevented the deployment of ships that drag ping locators. The batteries in the pingers on the black boxes are likely to go dead in about 20 more days.
‘‘We are confident that rescuers would be able to locate them in time,’’ said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator.
The search for the remaining bodies has been exhausting for family members.
Eight Islamic clerics flew in a helicopter over the site Tuesday and scattered rice into the sea, a local tradition, and prayed for those who perished.