Update: Items resembling slide, plane door seen in AirAsia QZ8501 search

[PANGKALAN BUN] Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted in the sea during an aerial search Tuesday for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, Indonesian officials said.

An AFP photographer on the search flight that spotted the possible debris said he had seen objects in the sea resembling a life raft, life jackets and long orange tubes.

Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told reporters: "We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-coloured objects which we could not photograph." "The position is 10 kilometres (six miles) from the location the plane was last captured by radar," he said.

Mr Putranto displayed 10 photos of objects resembling a plane door, emergency slide, and a square box-like object.

"It is not really clear... it could be the wall of the plane or the door of the plane," he said.

"Let's pray that those objects are what we are really trying to find," he said in Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.

AirAsia flight QZ8501 disappeared Sunday morning over the Java Sea with 162 people on board.

The search is focused on waters around the islands of Bangka and Belitung in the Java Sea, across from Kalimantan.

AFP