Plane missing:
A search was under way for an Indonesian jet with 162 aboard that was en route to Singapore.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An AirAsia plane with 162 people aboard lost contact with ground control on Sunday after takeoff from Indonesia on the way to Singapore, and searchand-rescue operations were under way.
Flight QZ8501 lost communication with Jakarta’s air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. Singapore time, about an hour before it was scheduled to land in Singapore, the Singapore Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The contact was lost about 42 minutes after takeoff from Juanda International Airport near Surabaya, East Java, according to Hadi Mustofa, an official of the transportation ministry, who spoke to Indonesia’s MetroTV.
“The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost,” AirAsia posted on its Facebook page.
The airline said in a statement that the plane was an Airbus A320-200. The plane had six crew and 156 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, Juanda airport general manager Trikora Raharjo said.
There were six foreigners on board — three South Koreans, including an infant, and one each from Singapore, Britain and Malaysia — and the rest were Indonesians, Raharjo said.
Flightradar24, a website that monitors global air traffic, reported that the aircraft was flying at 32,000 feet over the Java Sea, which separates the islands of Borneo and Java, when the signal was lost.
Indonesian and Singaporean authorities have activated search-and-rescue operations, officials said.
Budget carrier AirAsia, which has dominated cheap travel in the region for years, has never lost a plane before.
This is the third major air incident for Southeast Asia this year. On March 8, a Malaysia Airlines flight went missing with 239 people aboard after taking off from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The plane remains missing. On July 17, another Malaysia Airlines flight was was shot down over rebelcontrolled eastern Ukraine while on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, with 298 people on board killed.