Emergency alarms went off seconds before AirAsia flight 8501 disappeared over the Java Sea, indicating that the pilots scrambled to steer the plane before it crashed, media reports quoting a safety investigator said on Thursday.

Indonesia's safety officials and the airline has yet to comment on the reports.

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Unidentified Indonesian safety investigators told Agence France-Presse that the flight data recorder in the doomed Airbus A320-200's cockpit recorded sounds from a couple of alarms. He added the loud alarm sounds drowned out the pilots' voices.

The reports followed a disclosure from Indonesian Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan that the plane ascended too swiftly, before it disappeared from radar and crashed into the Java Sea.

Customized balloons are being prepared to help recover the plane's fuselage and other wreckage from the sea floor. The operation point man for Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, said 70 balloons had been prepared and search areas had been marked so that investigators and community authorities in Banda Aceh could carry out the mission together.

Suryadi said all requirements had been gathered so resources are fully maximized in raising the remnants of the AirAsia plane. Bad weather in past several days have hampered retrieval operations.

The chairman of the national safety board ruled out giving to the public an initial report detailing the investigations findings.

It has to be filed early next week with the International Civil Aviation Organization. State regulations require parties to submit an initial report within a month of the accident.

On December 28, the AirAsia plane disappeared from radars in the thick of stormy weather. All 162 passengers and crew on board the plane died in the crash. The plane was on its way to Singapore from Surubaya in Indonesia.