US ship 'finds black boxes' from airliner

The US Navy ship Mary Sears has reportedly detected signals from the black boxes of an Indonesian airliner which went missing on New Year's Day, according to reports.

A statement from the US embassy in Jakarta, obtained by the Associated Press (AP), said that signals "on the same frequency of the black boxes associated with the missing airplane" had been located.

The Adam Air Boeing 737 was carrying 102 people when it disappeared on January 1st. Since then, debris has been found around the island of Sulawesi, but no bodies have yet been discovered.

A wreckage of the aircraft has not yet been found, although the statement quoted by AP noted that "heavy debris" had been discovered across a wide area close to where the signals had come from.

Black boxes contain crucial information regarding a plane's speed and communications. However, an operation to retrieve the transmitters from the ocean would be long and tough.

Relatives of the passengers on board were misinformed shortly after the crash, when false reports circulated claiming that a wreckage had been found. These reports have since been dismissed by officials and the search has been ongoing ever-since.