A massive search and rescue operation for the missing Air Asia flight which lost contact with air traffic control over Indonesia has been suspended for the night due to unworkable conditions.
The fishing boats and official vessels that were sent out by Indonesia's national search and rescue authority, along with helicopters and Hercules aircraft from Singapore, will resume their efforts at sunrise on Monday morning.
There is an unconfirmed report of a wreckage spotted east of Belitung Island in the Java Sea, 100 miles from where the plane was last tracked.
AirAsia flight QZ8501 departed Surabaya, in Indonesia, on Sunday at 5.30am local time, and was scheduled to land at Changi Airport, in Singapore, at 8.30am (Singapore local time).
The airline confirmed there were 155 passengers on board - including 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant, and have also stated there were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.
Nationalities of passengers and crew on-board are one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one French, one British, three South Koreans and 155 Indonesians.
Channel NewsAsia reports that the British passenger was a father travelling with his two-year-old daughter - a Singaporean national.
The girl's Singaporean mother is said to have travelled back from Surabaya earlier with an older sibling.
According to Indonesia’s Director of Air Transport, Djoko Murjatmodjo, contact with the aircraft was lost between Tanjung Pandan and Pontianak, a trading port city in west Kalimantan about 100 nautical miles south east of Tanjung Pandan.
The last communication between QZ8501's pilot and air traffic control was when he requested to increase his altitude due to bad weather.
According to a leaked air traffic control sheet, the plane’s speed had dropped to 353 knots, suggesting it was having trouble climbing, perhaps because of severe weather.
Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas said time was of the essence when trying to locate a missing plane.
'When the plane loses contact with the control tower the authorities need to start investigating immediately,’ Mr Thomas told Sky News.
'When MH370 went missing it took them a couple of hours to do anything about it, which is far too long.
'It appears that today there have been a couple of hours lag, at least, before something was done.
'But at least there are plenty of daylight hours left.'
Mr Thomas said the flight path meant the aircraft flew over water for most of the route.
'The fact that they asked for a different flight path indicates that they were trying to manoeuvre around the storms,' he said.
'This is also a very heavy thunderstorm area and the weather can be very nasty.'
Photos of two of the crew aboard the ill-fated flight:
Air Asia flight attendant Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi
Flight attendent Oscar Desano (above right) is believed to have been on board the missing flight
Really sad...hope some good news will come out of the search and rescue....
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My God....this asians need to give their lives to christ...God said even if our faith be as mustard seed...i rembr wen i went something like this at port harcourt,it wasnt just turbulence..cabin crew prepare 4landing...and that was how the plane started swinging uncontrollably..d pilot cud not see..a 45mins flight turned out to be 1hr 30mins from abuja to ph...God reigned supreme because i knew that plane with all the swinging would not crash.and God worked with our faith and we landed eventually...i'm not saying they dint pray on this flight. Not judging...i hope we hear some good news. Its unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteSo true @nomz... may God's mercies prevail. Amen!
DeleteWhen ur up there its totally out of ur control just rmb it's now in God's hands
DeleteI think it's peculiar to Asia vis of their route and turbulent weather
Delete*becos
DeleteScary to fly these days
ReplyDelete