Bad weather in Taiwan has hampered the deep-sea salvage of the "black box" recorders and wreckage from a China Airlines plane which crashed on Saturday.

Search teams have located voice cockpit and flight data recorders which could provide clues as to why the Boeing 747 broke up mid-air and plunged into the sea.

We have not decided when we will begin to salvage the black boxes

Aviation Safety Council official

But officials said the search for bodies was the top priority.

About 90 of the 225 feared victims have been recovered so far.

The black boxes - actually orange in colour - are thought to be off Taiwan's Penghu island.

"We are double checking their position and may send divers with undersea cameras later," an official from Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council said.

"But we have not decided when we will begin to salvage the black boxes because the weather is poor."

Search teams have also located a large chunk of wreckage from flight CI 611, which crashed 20 minutes into its journey from Taipei to Hong Kong.

It is suspected to be the front cabin, where some victims could be still be strapped into their seats.

"The first priority is to recover bodies, then the black boxes, then the wreckage," Transport Minister Lin Lin-san told reporters on Thursday.

Specialist help

Taiwan has said it plans to ask the US and China for satellite and radar data which could help locate wreckage and give a better indication of how the debris fell.

The flight captain's hat has been recovered

The lack of answers has prompted angry relatives to complain about China Airlines' response to the disaster, and there have been calls from Taiwanese politicians for the state-controlled airline to be privatised.

US air safety experts are helping in the investigation, because of their experience with two other crashes which appear to have similarities with this one, and which also needed deep-sea salvage skills.

China Airlines accidents

1999 - MD11 airliner crash lands in Hong Kong, killing three people 1998 - A300-600 airliner crashes near Taipei killing all 197 on board and at least seven on ground 1994 - A300-600 crashes in Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people 1989 - 737-200 hits mountain near Hualien, Taiwan, killing 56 people

The two crashes were a mid-air explosion of a TWA Boeing jet in 1996 off the New York coast, and a SwissAir MD11 which crashed into the sea off Canada after leaving New York in 1998.

Investigators later attributed the TWA crash to an explosion in the plane's fuel tank.

Aviation specialists have put forward several theories about the causes of the China Airlines crash - an internal explosion, sudden cabin depressurisation, a mid-air collision, or a military accident.