QZ8501 Indonesian search teams were considering whether to use a crane to lift the fuselage of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea last month, an official said today.

Thirteen divers were sent to estimate the weight of the fuselage and look for bodies, but the weather was hampering their work, search operation director Suryadi Supriyadi said.

"There's still no significant progress so far," he noted.

The technical options to raise the fuselage include a barge equipped with a crane, or inflated lifting bags, used to recover the aircraft's tail last week.

The aircraft crashed on Dec 28 en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia with 162 people on board.

So far, 53 bodies have been found. There were no survivors.

Indonesian crash investigators are examining the aircraft's flight and data recoders, and are expected to release a preliminary report within a month.

- dpa