Ice likely caused AirAsia crash, Indonesia says

Weather was the "triggering factor" in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 with icing likely causing engine damage, Indonesian officials said, as rough seas Jan. 4 hampered the search for bodies and the sunken wreckage.

The Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea a week ago carrying 162 people from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers are hunting for the "black box" flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

An initial report on the website of Indonesia's meteorological agency BMKG suggested the weather at the time the plane went down sparked the disaster after it appeared to fly into storm clouds.

"Based on the available data received on the location of the aircraft's last contact, the weather was the triggering factor behind the accident," said the report, which referred to infra-red satellite pictures showing peak cloud temperatures of minus 80 to minus 85 degrees celsius at the time.

"The most probable weather phenomenon was icing which can cause engine damage due to a cooling process. This is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of existing meteorological data," the report said.

It remained unclear why other planes on similar routes were unaffected by the weather, and other analysts said there was not yet enough information to explain the disaster.

"It's irrelevant to make an assumption on the cause of the crash as we haven't found the black boxes yet," former air force commander Chappy Hakim told AFP.

Five major parts of the Airbus A320-200 have now been found off the island of Borneo, but rough weather throughout the week has hampered the search, a huge operation assisted by several countries including the United States and...