Divers in Java Sea have retrieved the flight data recorder of crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501, according to Indonesia search and rescue leader Bambang Soelistyo.  They’re now trying to locate and retrieve the cockpit voice recorder, which recorded the pilot and flight crew.

Divers apparently got those calmer conditions they had been hoping for in order to make it down to the place where the “pings” from the devices had been detected. 

“The black boxes are in a crushed part of the aircraft debris, making it very difficult for the team of divers,” said navigation director for the transport ministry Tonny Budiono, before the divers descended on the retrieval mission.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic controllers on 28 December as it flew out of Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, a destination it would never reach.  The last communication from the cockpit before the flight disappeared had been the pilot requesting to climb to a higher elevation, up and over a powerful storm over the Java Sea.