South Korea's coast guard says it has located the dead bodies of two people believed to be pilots of an Asiana Airlines cargo plane that crashed three months ago.

It said Sunday that rescuers found the plane's cockpit parts with the corpses off the southern resort island of Jeju on Saturday.

The discovery comes amid media speculation the plane's chief pilot may have intentionally crashed the aircraft to let his family get insurance money to pay back about US$1.4 million in debts.

His family has denied it has such a big household debt. The pilot reportedly obtained seven insurance polices in the weeks ahead of the crash.

The coast guard says it still needs to find the plane's black box flight recorder to help look into details about the crash.