AirAsia Flight 8501: 'Victims', Objects Resembling Plane Door, Emergency Slide Spotted In Search Area [PHOTOS]

Update as of 2:35 a.m. EST: Indonesian officials told local television on Tuesday that "victims" had been spotted near the area where AirAsia Flight QZ8501 went missing Sunday morning, The Associated Press reported.

According to The Star Online, a local news site, Indonesia's Acting Director General of Transport Djoko Murjatmodjo said: “For the time being it can be confirmed that it’s the AirAsia plane and the transport minister will depart soon to Pangkalan Bun.”

Update as of 1:46 a.m. EST: Indonesia's Acting Director General of Transport Djoko Murjatmodjo said on local television that he "strongly suspects" debris spotted in the Java Sea belong to AirAsia Flight QZ8501, which went missing Sunday morning with 162 people on board.

"We are checking...it's probably from the body of the aircraft," he reportedly said, basing his comments on the size and color of the debris, a correspondent for Channel News Asia reported citing Kompas TV, adding that the co-pilot of a C-130 Hercules plane involved in the search had reported sighting floating objects resembling humans, luggage, buoys and airplane parts.

Update as of 1:25 a.m. EST: An Indonesian military aircraft has spotted an object that appears to be a life jacket, Yusuf Latif, a spokesperson for Indonesia National Search and Rescue said, according to The Associated Press. The agency also reportedly said that at least one helicopter has been sent to the area to collect the debris for investigation. The items will reportedly be taken to the search and rescue coordination post on Belitung Island.

Objects resembling an emergency slide and a plane door have been spotted in the search area for the missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501, which disappeared Sunday morning, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday. Indonesian officials expanded the search area between the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and also moved the search to land on Tuesday.

Officials are reportedly waiting to verify the suspected debris, which has been spotted near South Borneo, about 105 nautical miles from Pangkalan Bun, in the Java Sea. Meanwhile, local television network Kompas TV showed footage of suspected plane wreckage in water, Reuters reported. Authorities are examining the photographs of the objects, CNN reported.

“We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-colored objects which we could not photograph,” Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told a press conference, according to South China Morning Post. “The position is 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) from the location the plane was last captured by radar.”

Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency reportedly said Tuesday that two emergency signals that it received were not from the missing aircraft. Various reports of floating objects and oil slicks surfaced Monday but none of them were confirmed to be from the missing Airbus A320-200, which went off radar after it requested a route change to avoid rough weather.