At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city -- the take-off point for the aircraft that disappeared during a storm on Sunday.
"My heart will be totally crushed if it's true. I will lose a son," 60-year-old Dwijanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.
More than 48 hours after the Airbus A320-200 lost contact carrying 162 people to Singapore, aerial searchers spotted items in the Java Sea which officials said were from the plane.
One man covered his face and had to be held up by two other men before he fainted and was taken out by stretcher. Another woman was screaming and crying as she was supported by the mayor of Surabaya.
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A female AirAsia officer shouted at the television media for showing footage of a floating body, while about 200 journalists were barred from the room holding the families, the windows of which were boarded up.
Munif, a 50-year-old whose younger brother Siti Rahmah was on the plane, said he had been trying hard to keep the other families calm.
"But the atmosphere was very different after the footage of a dead body was shown. Families became hysterical," he said.
"Because everyone was wailing and yelling, I couldn't deal with it so I decided to leave the room."
Agus Panjaya, 36, had six relatives on the plane but was prepared for bad news.
"Before this everything was unclear. At least there is now some form of closure. For the past three days, we were really sad. We couldn't sleep well," he told AFP.
Panjaya said he was going to wait in Surabaya for the bodies.
"We don't think of compensation at the moment. As long as the bodies are being brought back, we are already grateful. That's what we are thinking right now," he said.