An AirAsia Indonesia airliner
flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board has gone missing. Flight
QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control at 06:24 local time (23:24 GMT
Saturday) over the Java Sea. The plane, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared midway
into the flight of more than two hours from the city of Surabaya. No distress
call was made. Bad weather was reported in the area, and an air search
operation has now been suspended for the night.
Rescuers scouring
Indonesian waters for an AirAsia plane that went missing have found no sign of
the missing jet more than 16 hours after it lost contact with air-traffic
control, officials said Sunday.
Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia's acting director
general of transportation, said that minutes before the plane disappeared
from radar, the pilot asked air traffic control for permission to avoid a cloud
bank by turning left and going higher, to 34,000 feet. Flight 8501 gave no
distress signal, he said.
Ministry official Djoko Murjatmodjo said the request
"could not be approved at that time due to traffic, there was a flight
above, and five minutes later [flight QZ8501] disappeared from radar".
The U.S.
National Transportation Safety board is monitoring developments in the
search and is prepared to assist if asked by the Indonesian government, agency
spokesman, Terry Williams, told NBC News. Officials with the U.S. State
Department said they were ready to assist in the search, if needed, adding that
none of the passengers on the plane were carrying U.S. passports. "Our
hearts and hopes are with the passengers and families of AirAsia QZ8501,"
Secretary of State John Kerry posted on Twitter.
A few hours ago many of the relatives at the crisis
centre in the airport still seemed calm - glued to their phones, perhaps trying
to find any news of the plane or stay in touch with friends and loved ones.
But
more than 12 hours since the plane took off they are looking increasingly
worried. Officials still have no idea what happened to the aircraft. The
governor of East Java, Soekarwo, the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, and
the chief executive of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, have come to talk to the
relatives to assure them that all is being done to locate the missing Airbus.
This is the third
major air incident for Southeast Asia this year:
• On March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a
wide-bodied Boeing 777, went missing soon after taking off from Kuala Lumpur
for Beijing. It remains missing with 239 people in one of the biggest aviation
mysteries.
• On July 17, another Malaysia Airlines
flight, also a Boeing 777, was shot down over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine
while on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. A total of 298 people on
board were killed.
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