AirAsia Updates: Some victims died holding hands in the sea, while wreckage of AirAsia flight 8501 is found upside down on bottom of the Java Sea

Indonesian search officials have now confirmed they have located the fuselage of AirAsia flight 8501 on sonar radar, upside down on the sea floor.

Officials from Basarnas, Indonesia's search and rescue agency, say the plane wreckage has been located in 24 to 30 metres of water.

Before darkness fell in the area, search teams had also identified a shadow that they believed to be the plane's fuselage. 

Many of the remaining victims are thought likely to still be on board the aircraft but wind, strong currents and high surf hampered recovery efforts as distraught family members anxiously waited to identify their loved ones. 

It comes amid revelations from a pilot involved in the search, that three people killed on the AirAsia flight were holding hands when their bodies were spotted floating in the Java sea off Indonesia.

Lieutenant Airman Tri Wobowo, who co-piloted the C130 Hercules aircraft that first saw debris of the plane on Tuesday, told Indonesian newspaper Kompas: ‘There are seven to eight people. Three [of them] again hold hands.’

The chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Bambang Sulistyo, said that two males had been recovered, along with one female who was wearing a flight attendant uniform. 

Since wreckage from the plane was discovered off the coast of Borneo Island, after three days of searching, there have been a number of different body counts from several official sources. It's now believed seven bodies have been recovered.

Divers and ships will now search the wreckage for the all-important black boxes of the doomed plane, after officials confirmed that the bodies and debris found are from flight 8501.

Aviation experts thought the fuselage would be easily found as the aircraft most likely only broke up when it hit the water.

The Airbus A320-200 was 42 minutes into its flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore on Sunday when it vanished with 162 people on board.

A 38-year-old Indonesian fisherman, Mohammed Taha, was reportedly the first person to spot any wreckage - despite the multi-million dollar air-search for the jet.

Mr Taha spotted metal objects in the water but didn't know a plane was missing until he returned to his home in the village of Belinyu on Monday, Indonesian news website Tempo reported.

'I found a lot of debris - small and large - in the Tujuh islands,' Mr Taha said.

'The largest was four metres long and two metres wide. They were red coloured with white silver. It looked like the AirAsia colours.' 

- Daily mail