AirAsia Indonesia jetliner missing over Java Sea
The A320-200 aircraft is carrying 155 passengers and seven crew
The A320-200 aircraft is carrying 155 passengers and seven crew
Grieving relatives are waiting at airports in Indonesia and Singapore for news of AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ8501, which is missing believed crashed with 155 passengers and seven crew on board.
It was flying from Surabaya in Java and was bound for Singapore and was last detected at 7.24am Singapore time on Sunday.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Airbus A320-200 shortly after the pilots requested permission to change course to avoid a thunderstorm in the Java Sea.
A search and rescue operation, assisted by the air forces and navies of both countries, was suspended overnight.
AirAsia Indonesia's parent is Asia’s largest budget airline and is based in Kuala Lumpur. It has set up briefing centres at Surabaya Airport and Singapore’s Changi for passengers’ next-of-kin.
More than 40 relatives and friends of 57 passengers on board the Airbus A320-200 have registered at Changi's Terminal 2 and 16 next-of-kin took up the offer to fly to Surabaya on Sunday night.
AirAsia say there were more than 150 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian and one French citizen on board. The passengers also include 16 children and one infant.
Airbus says the missing aircraft was delivered to AirAsia from the production line in October 2008. It is powered by CFM 56-5B engines and had accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights.
AirAsia competes with Malaysia Airlines, which lost contact with MH370 in March. That flight remains missing.