Search widens for AirAsia Flight 8501 Airbus A320-200 aircraft, U.S. joins hunt for wreckage

JAKARTA, Indonesia, 30 Dec. 2014.AirAsia Indonesia officials in Jakarta, Indonesia, have confirmed that Flight 8501 (QZ8501) from Surabaya to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 (Surabaya LT) on 27 Dec. 2014. The Airbus A320-200commercial aircraft flight (registration number PK-AXC)—with a crew of two pilots, four flight attendants, and one engineer on board—took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 05:35.

Image copyright Ole Simon, http://www.airliners.net/photo/Indonesia-AirAsia/Airbus-A320-216/1657793/L/

The captain in command had a total of 20,537 flying hours, of which 6,100 flying hours were with AirAsia Indonesia on the Airbus A320. The first office officer had a total of 2,275 flying hours with AirAsia Indonesia. In addition to the two pilots and cabin crew of five, 155 passengers were on board, consisting of 138 adults, 16 children, and one infant.

The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.

The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).

Djoko Murjatmodjo, acting director general of air transport at Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation, has been quoted as saying that air traffic controllers approved the request to divert the flight path, but denied the request to climb to 38,000 feet due to high traffic. No distress signal was issued; contact was lost roughly five minutes after the request to climb higher to avoid a cloud (or weather) was denied.

Search-and-rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the National Search and Rescue Agency of Republic of Indonesia (BASARNAS). An international search-and-rescue mission from Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia has been mobilized in the search of flight QZ8501, BASARNAS officials say. AirAsia Indonesia officials are cooperating and assisting with the investigation.

Jusuf Kalla, Indonesia’s vice president, announced that approximately 30 ships (including destroyer USS Sampson from the United States) and 15 aircraft from at least three countries had joined the search for the passenger jet in the Java Sea.

Nationalities of passengers:

1 Singapore

1 Malaysia

3 South Korea

1 United Kingdom

149 Indonesia

Nationalities of crew:

1 France

6 Indonesia