A Singapore-bound AirAsia Indonesia jet carrying 162 passengers and crew members lost contact with air-traffic control on Sunday morning, prompting Indonesian authorities to launch search and rescue operations.
The Singapore Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that the plane — an Airbus A320-200 — “lost contact with Jakarta air traffic control” at 7:24 a.m. local time (7:24 p.m. Saturday in Washington) , about an hour before its scheduled landing at Changi Airport. Contact was lost about 42 minutes after takeoff from Surabaya’s Juanda International Airport, an Indonesian Ministry of Transportation official told Indonesia’s MetroTV, according to the Associated Press.
The official, Hadi Mustofa, said the plane was believed to be over the Java Sea when it lost contact. In a statement, AirAsia said that “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 it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control.”
Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia’s acting director general of transportation, said at a news conference in Surabaya that the pilots had asked to ascend to 38,000 feet because of clouds, according to the Guardian. Six minutes later, the official said, the plane went missing from the radar. He said there was no distress signal from the cockpit.
The flight took off early Sunday morning from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, with 155 passengers, two pilots, one engineer and four flight attendants on board, according to AirAsia, a Malaysia-based budget carrier. There were 16 children and one infant among the passengers, the airline said. All but six passengers and crew members were Indonesian, AirAsia said; three were South Korean, and there were individuals from Malaysia, France and Singapore on the plane, as well.
Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore, said that he’d called Indonesian President Joko Widodo to offer his country’s assistance. Indonesian Air Force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said three aircraft, including a surveillance plane, had been dispatched to the area. The Singapore air force and the navy also were searching with two C-130 planes.
