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. Indonesia quickly launched a search to locate the missing plane, but by Sunday night,
most search and rescue operations were halted for the day, the plane still unaccounted for.
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," Indonesian Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustafa
said.
AirAsia Indonesia CEO
Sunu Widyatmoko said that the airline is "deeply shocked and saddened" by the disappearance.
“We
are deeply shocked and saddened by this incident," he said in a
Facebook post. "We are cooperating with the relevant authorities to the
fullest extent to determine the cause of this incident. In the meantime,
our main priority is keeping the families of our passengers and
colleagues informed on the latest developments.”
The ministry's air transportation director Joko Muryo Atmodjo
said no distress signal had been sent,
adding, "Therefore we cannot assume anything yet." "We are coordinating with [the] 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 at 8:30 a.m. in Singapore, according to
AFP.
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.
Malaysia, Singapore and
Australia offered to assist the
search for the plane. AirAsia said it was
"cooperating fully" with the efforts, and set up 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.
The
U.S. also offered support for the search. Spokespersons for the
National Transportation Safety Board and the State Department said that
the agencies are monitoring the situation and "ready to assist" the
rescue team if needed.
The A320 is Airbus’s best-selling jet family, with more than 6,000
planes in operation. In a statement, Airbus said that the plane that
went missing
came off the production line in 2008, and had
conducted approximately 13,600 flights, for a total of about 23,000 flight hours.
Airbus announced
it would provide its full assistance to the investigation, and said the
"thoughts of the Airbus management and staff are with all those
affected by Flight QZ 8501."
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. The disappearance of the AirAsia flight is the third air incident of 2014 that involves Malaysia, the
Associated Press notes.
Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, suffered two disasters
in 2014. In March, the airline lost contact with flight MH370 en route
from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard. It
remains missing. In July, flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine,
killing 298 people. Following the news of Flight 8501's disappearance,
Malaysia Airlines offered its support on Twitter.
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."
"Our hearts and hopes are with the passengers and families of AirAsia QZ8501," U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry tweeted.
Mesothelioma is an uncommon form of cancer that occurs in
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cases have been reported in which other body organs are affected with this
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if it is malignant Mesothelioma.
Hence;
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