AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore missing

 

Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control, Malaysia-based AirAsia tweeted.

Air Asia has confirmed it has lost contact with flight QZ8501 with 161 people aboard after takeoff from Indonesia on the way to Singapore.

An Indonesian Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustofa said the aircraft, an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC, lost contact with the Jakarta air traffic control tower at 6:17 am local time.

The plane had six crew and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, the general manager of Surabaya's Juanda airport, Trikora Raharjo, told The Associated Press.

There were six foreigners - three South Koreans including an infant and one each from Singapore, British and Malaysia, said Raharjo. The rest were Indonesians, he said.

Flightradar24, a flight tracking website, said the plane was delivered in September 2008, which would make it six years old.

It said the plane was flying at 32,000 feet (9,700 meters), the regular cruising altitude for most jetliners, when the signal from the plane was lost.

The Malaysia-based 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, Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a wide-bodied Boeing 777, went missing soon after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. It remains missing until this day with 239 people in one of the biggest aviation mysteries.

Another Malaysia Airlines flight, also a Boeing 777, was shot down over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine while on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17. A total of 298 people on board were killed.

Officials said Flight QZ8501 had requested an unusual route before losing contact.

It 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.

The contact was lost about 42 minutes after the single-aisle jetliner took off from Indonesia's Surabaya airport, Hadi Mustofa, an official of the transportation ministry told Indonesia's MetroTV.

In a statement, AirAsia Indonesia said it regretted to confirm that it had lost contact with the plane.