France's BEA crash investigation agency said a specialist black box search team and equipment arrived on Friday at the search area for the Indonesia AirAsia flight which crashed on Sunday en route from Indonesia to Singapore.
Radar data being examined by investigators appeared to show that AirAsia Flight QZ8501 made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320's limits, said a source familiar with the probe's initial findings.
Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tuesday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.
Southeast Asian leaders will welcome China's Prime Minister Le Keqiang with fanfare on Wednesday but behind closed doors will push their giant neighbor to take a less bellicose approach to overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
