Indonesia AirAsia QZ8501 families accept 'sad reality' as search ends

JAKARTA - An Indonesian whose daughter-in-law is among 56 people unaccounted for following the December crash of an AirAsia plane said on Wednesday his family had accepted the "sad reality" that her body would never be found.

Rescuers called off the hunt for the remaining passengers on Tuesday, almost three months after Flight QZ8501 went down in stormy weather as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people on board.

The crash of the Airbus A320-200 sparked a huge international search, with ships and aircraft from several nations scouring the waters for the plane wreckage and the victims.

In recent weeks the hunt had already been scaled back, with just Indonesia's civilian search and rescue agency involved and only a small number of new bodies found.