Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 may have been
found as Indonesian search crews believe they
located the site where the flight and its 162
passengers and crew crashed in the ocean.
The flight lost contact with Indonesian air traffic
control while en route to Singapore on Sunday.
The pilots had asked to change course to avoid
some bad weather, but the plane never sent a
distress signal before being lost to radar. The
flight had 162 people on board, including 155
passengers and seven crew members.
As the search widened on Sunday, reports began
circulating that crash site for AirAsia flight
QZ8501 had been found near East Belitung.
“We received information from Basarnas in
Jakarta that contact had been lost with an
AirAsia flight over Bangka Belitung waters at 6:17
a.m. local time. We then dispatched a vessel with
a search and rescue team of 22 members to
check the information,” Febi Imam Saputra, an
information official at Basarnas Bangka Belitung,
said as quoted by Antara news agency in
Pangkalpinang on Sunday.
Saputra added that the flight went missing at
03.22.46 South and 108.50.07 East.
“If we look at the map, these coordinates refer to
an area around 20 nautical miles from East
Belitung,” said Febi.
But officials in Malaysia debunked the reports,
saying that AirAsia flight QZ8501 remains
missing.
“Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai has
dismissed claims that flight QZ8501 has been
found,” ChannelNewsAsia reported.
The search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 has
widened, with several countries joining in to
locate the missing plane. Merdeka.com reported
that Jakarta deployed seven ships and a
helicopter for the search and locate operations.
Singapore has also deployed one C-130 plane, the
Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said in a
statement.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
Though there was bad weather on the plane’s
route from Indonesia to Singapore including
lightning strikes, one pilot with experience in the
region said that should not have taken the plane
down.
“Lightning cannot take out a plane,” pilot Elmo
Jayawardena told ChannelNewsAsia.
As reports that AirAsia flight QZ8501 had been
found still circulated, the Indonesian navy said
that no wreckage was yet found , adding that
visibility in the search zone was very narrow.
