Investigators searching for black boxes in the crashed AirAsia plane have lifted the tail portion out of the Java Sea. The flight went down two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board.

The tail was hoisted from a depth of about 100 feet using inflatable bags that were attached to the rear of the aircraft, and a crane to lift it onto a rescue ship.

Flight QZ8501 came down on December 28th during a storm en route from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore.

Before take-off, the pilot had asked to fly at a higher altitude to avoid the storm - but permission was denied because of the number of planes above him on the busy route.

Some 40 bodies and debris from the plane have been recovered from the surface of the waters off Borneo, while larger pieces of suspected wreckage have been detected by sonar on the sea floor.

It is thought to include parts of the fuselage, where many of the bodies of victims may still be trapped.

In his last communication, Captain Iriyanto - an experienced former air force pilot - said he wanted to change course to avoid the storm system.

Soon after all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after the Airbus A320-200 had taken off.

Of the 162 passengers and crew on board, 155 were Indonesian and three South Korean. The other four were from Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France.