A four-week recovery mission to salvage the wreckage of an AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea with 162 passengers on board has been called off by the Indonesian military.

Efforts have been made during the last several days to lift the fuselage from the ocean, however weather and conditions have impaired the attempts to do so.

• Rescuers fail to lift downed AirAsia plane
• Fuselage recovery efforts fail
• Divers find AirAsia bodies still in seats

Out of the 162 people on board the plane, only 70 bodies have been recovered.

“All of our forces are being pulled out,” said Rear Admiral Widodo, a navy official overseeing the search and rescue operation.

“We apologise to the families of the victims.”

Flight QZ8501 went down on December 28 in stormy weather, during what was supposed to be a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Widodo said no more victims had been found by divers involved in the search for the past two days.

Officials had been hoping to find most of the victims inside the main body of the plane.

Since Saturday, salvage teams have been using giant inflatable bags to try to raise the fuselage of the Airbus A320-200, which is lying in the sea at a depth of around 30 metres.

At one point, they managed to lift the main body to the surface for two minutes before a sling holding it snapped.

– with AAP