AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 with 162 on board goes missing on way to Singapore
December 28, 2014 -- Updated 1242 GMT (2042 HKT)
AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 missing
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Search operation halted for the night, but big ships won't return to shore
- First officer on the plane is French citizen, France says
- SingaporeA pilot asked to deviate from the flight plan due to weather, the airline says
- 162 people are on board missing flight, including 17 children
The search operation for
the missing AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 has been halted for the night, but
big ships won't return to shore and will leave their searchlights on,
according to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.
Before communication was
lost, a pilot on AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 asked to deviate from its
planned route -- from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore --
because of bad weather, officials said.
The aircraft went missing
as it flew over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and
Borneo, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search
and rescue operations.
Of the people on board
the Airbus A320-200, 155 are Indonesian, three are South Korean, one is
British, one is French, one is Malaysian and one is Singaporean, the
airline said.
Plane was on common route
AirAsia pilot requested to change route
Seventeen children,
including one infant, are among the passengers, the carrier said. Seven
of the people on board are crew members.
At the airport in Surabaya, loved ones gathered and wept as they waited for any word on the passengers.
Some took cell phone
pictures of a flight manifest posted on a wall. The black-and-white
papers showed every passenger's name and seat number, but not their
fate.
Others simply sat and dabbed tears from their eyes.
"Thank you for all your
thoughts and prayers. We must stay strong," AirAsia Chief Executive Tony
Fernandes said on Twitter. He later announced he was traveling to
Surabaya, saying most of the passengers are from there.
As word spread of the
missing plane, the airline changed the color of its logo on its website
and social media accounts from red to gray.
Heavy thunderstorms in area
Flight 8501 "was
requesting deviation due to en route weather before communication with
the aircraft was lost," the airline said.
The flight's captain
asked permission to climb to a higher altitude, said Djoko Murdjatmojo,
the head of aviation at the Indonesian Transportation Ministry,
according to the national news agency.
According to flight tracking websites, almost the entire flight path of the plane was over the sea.
Bad weather gripped the region at the time, CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.
"We still had lines of
very heavy thunderstorms" when the plane was flying, Van Dam said. "But
keep in mind, turbulence doesn't necessarily bring down airplanes."
CNN aviation analyst
Mary Schiavo said that if there was an onboard emergency, the pilots
should have issued a mayday call or a pan-pan call.
"Mayday means you're
immediately in danger of losing the flight; pan-pan means that it is
urgent but that you can continue the flight and request an alternate
route or an alternate airport," said Schiavo, a former inspector general
for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
"It's disconcerting in that the standard procedures for an emergency don't seem to have been deployed," she said.
The bad weather in the
area is also likely to hamper the search efforts for the aircraft, said
Alan Diehl, a former U.S. air accident investigator.
The Malaysian government
said it had deployed three vessels and three aircraft to help
Indonesian authorities in the search for the plane. Singapore said it
had activated its rescue and aviation agencies. Australia said it had
also offered assistance.
There was conflicting
information about when exactly Flight 8501 went missing. AirAsia said
contact was lost at 7:24 a.m. Sunday, Surabaya time (7:24 p.m. Saturday
ET), but Indonesian aviation authorities said it happened earlier, at
6:17 a.m.
'Very good' safety reputation
AirAsia is a
Malaysia-based airline that is popular in the region as a budget
carrier. It has about 100 destinations, with affiliate companies in
several Asian countries.
The missing plane is
operated by AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, in which the Malaysian
company holds a 48.9% stake, according to its website.
AirAsia has a "very good" reputation for safety, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said.
Flight 8501's captain
has a total of 6,100 flying hours, and the first officer a total of
2,275 flying hours, the airline said. The plane's last scheduled
maintenance was on November 16, it said.
The French Foreign
Ministry said the first officer is the French citizen who is on the
plane. A state-run company in Indonesia that manages airports identified
the first officer as Remi Emmanuel Plesel.
Airbus said the plane
had "accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600
flights." The aircraft manufacturer said it would provide full
assistance to authorities in charge of investigating the missing plane.
The loss of contact with
the AirAsia plane comes nearly 10 months after the disappearance of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over Southeast
Asia on March 8 with 239 people on board.
The Malaysia Airlines
plane, a Boeing 777-200ER, lost contact with air traffic control over
the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Searchers have yet to
find any debris from Flight 370, which officials believe crashed in the
southern Indian Ocean after veering dramatically off course.
U.S. President Barack
Obama has been briefed about the missing AirAsia plane, White House
spokesman Eric Schultz said, adding that U.S. officials will continue to
monitor the situation.
CNN's Holly Yan, Yousuf Basil, Steve Almasy,
Radina Gigova, Paula Hancocks, Joe Sutton, Euan McKirdy and Larry
Register contributed to this report. Journalist Chan Kok Leong also
contributed to this report.
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