AirAsia Flight From Indonesia To Singapore Loses Contact With Air Traffic Control

An AirAsia flight traveling from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore with 162 people on board lost contact with air traffic control early Sunday morning, the airline confirmed.

Flight QZ 8501 -- an Airbus 320-200 -- lost communication with Indonesia's Surabaya Juanda International Airport at 7:24 Singapore time on Sunday morning, the airline said. The plane "was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost," AirAsia said in a statement.

"The weather was not good -- it was bad -- at the estimated location the plane lost contact. We just received a weather report from the national meteorological, geophysics and climatology agency," Indonesian Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustafa said.

Mustafa said the plane lost contact somewhere between Kalimantan on Borneo island and Belitung island, about 42 minutes after the jet took off.

The ministry's air transportation director Joko Muryo Atmodjo said no distress signal had been sent.

"We are coordinating with rescue team and looking for its position. We believe it is somewhere between Tanjung Pandan, a town on Belitung island, and Kalimantan," Atmodjo said .

The plane took off at 5:20 a.m. local time in Surabaya and was scheduled to land over six hours ago, at 8:30 a.m. in Singapore, according to AFP.

The airline said 155 passengers, two pilots and five crew members were on board the flight. The passengers include 16 children and one infant. AirAsia said one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one French citizen and three South Koreans were traveling on the plane, in addition to Indonesian nationals.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, one woman present at a crisis center at the Changi Airport had seven family members on the flight, including her mother and brother.

Indonesia and Singapore launched a search for the missing plane, and Malaysia offered its assistance in locating the Flight 8501. AirAsia said "cooperating fully" with the efforts, and setup a call center for relatives of those aboard the plane.

AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.

 Indonesia's Transport Ministry said six ships and two helicopters were deployed to search for the missing flight.

Indonesia AirAsia #QZ8501 was flying at 32000 feet over Java Sea when ADS-B signal was lost pic.twitter.com/Xqy2lDkRnJ
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) 28 Desember 2014

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore released a statement early Sunday saying "a waiting area, and all necessary facilities and support have been set up for relatives and friends of the affected passengers" at Changi Airport. Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia, announced he would go to Surabaya where most of the passengers were from.

More relatives of passengers of @AirAsia #QZ8501 arrive at Changi Airport awaiting information http://t.co/HfketXjvJW pic.twitter.com/7FMFJm4YTp
— Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia) 28 Desember 2014

The statement said Singapore's air force and navy had been activated and offered to assist Indonesian authorities in the search. The A320 is Airbus’s best-selling jet family, with more than 6,000 planes in operation. Airbus tweeted it had been "informed of an event" and was "assessing the situation":

We have been informed of an event and all efforts are now going towards assessing the situation.
— Airbus (@Airbus) 28 Desember 2014

As news of the missing flight unfolded, AirAsia changed the color of the logos on their social media channels from red to grey. AirAsia, which is headquartered in Malaysia, is one of the fastest growing low-cost carriers in Asia. It has never lost a plane before, according to the Associated Press. Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, suffered two disasters in 2014. In March, the airline lost contact with flight MH370 en route from Jakarta to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard. It remains missing. In July, flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people. According to a White House pool report, U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed on the missing flight, and "White House officials will continue to monitor the situation." Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote on Twitter that he was "saddened" to hear about the missing plane. "My thoughts are with the passengers and their families," he said. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mohammad Najib Razak said his country "stands ready to help."

Very sad to hear that AirAsia Indonesia QZ8501 is missing. My thoughts are with the families. Malaysia stands ready to help.
— Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) 28 Desember 2014