SEARCH CONTINUES

After the recovery of the two black boxes, Indonesia is expected to scale back search and rescue operations in the Java Sea.

But government officials sought to reassure victims' families that efforts to retrieve the remains of their loved ones would continue.

"I have told (the families) that ending the main operation does not mean ending the search," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters in Surabaya late on Tuesday.

Forty-eight bodies have been plucked from the Java Sea and brought to Surabaya for identification. Searchers believe more bodies will be found in the plane's fuselage, which has yet to be located.

"We understand if the search becomes smaller ... but the bodies have to be found," said Frangky Chandry, whose younger brother was on the plane. "We want to bury our family. That's what we want."