Indonesia's transport minister said that the investigation over the Airbus 320-200 crash at the Java Sea last year would be completed by August. He also said that the National Transportation Safety Committee (NSTC) had been coordinating with them and with the president.

Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan advised both Airbus, the manufacturer of the plane, and AirAsia, the airline involved in the fatal air incident that took the lives of over 150 people traveling from Surabaya to Singapore on Dec. 28, "to accept the committee's final report and not to interfere with the investigation." He also assured observers that he had instructed the NTSC to make the investigation "as independent as possible."

The transport minister, however, refused to give any further details about the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crash.

Meanwhile, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had pointed out in an interview that the investigation "should aim at preventing future accidents, not apportioning blame or liability."

So far, a lot of details regarding the crash have been uncovered throughout the duration of the investigation. NTSC confirmed that Captain Iriyanto wasn't flying the plane; instead, it was his co-pilot. Remi Plesel, who was flying the plane. Also, the plane "climbed from 32,000 feet to well above 37,000 feet in 30 seconds." The flight was caught up in the middle of turbulent weather. However, the plane went back to 32,000 before finally crashing to the sea.

A few hours after the disappearance of the Airbus 320-200, AirAsia drew some flak after it switched its Facebook page photo to greyscale in mourning for the presumed deaths of the passengers. The search and retrieval operations that followed resulted to the recovery of over 100 bodies. Also, the operation led to the recovery of the two flight recorders that could bring further light to the investigation.

ICAO had already instructed the government to release the report publicly once its completed.