Search operations have been suspended for the night for an AirAsia plane that lost contact with air traffic control while headed from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people onboard.
On Sunday evening, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla -- who is leading the search for the flight -- told reporters at National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) headquarters in Jakarta the search was halted as nighttime approached and would resume at 06.00 a.m. Monday.
"It has been over 10 hours, and most likely there was an accident," he said, offering his condolences the relatives of the victims. "The government expresses its concern and deep grief."
Djoko Murjatmojo, director of Indonesia’s Air Transport Ministry, told reporters that search and rescue operations for Flight QZ8501 were focusing on the Java Sea area between Belitung island, off the east coast of Sumatra island, and Kalimantan province, Borneo island.
The Airbus A320-200 was last detected by radar at around 06.16 a.m. Indonesia time Sunday, less than an hour after taking off from Juanda International Airport in Indonesia’s second largest city Surabaya. It was expected to arrive at Singapore Airport at 08.30 a.m. Singapore time.
Murjatmojo said the flight’s pilot had requested to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds at 06.12 a.m., before the aircraft’s signal disappeared at around 34,000 feet.
Basarnas Chief Sulistyo -- who like many Indonesians uses only one name -- said the search had been called off overnight due to bad weather conditions and strong waves.
"We do not want our search and rescue teams to also face a disaster," the Kompas.com news website quoted him as saying at a press conference.
"The [search’s] first stage is seven days. Then our evaluation and [timeframe] will be extended according to the development of potential information on the field," he added.
According to Syamsul Huda, chief of Indonesia’s meteorological agency in Jakarta, the plane had been traveling amid heavy cloud cover.
"The plane was facing a very thick cloud between the Pacific and Borneo. Based on the data, the peak height of the cumulonimbus clouds was 48,000 feet," he said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo -- popularly known as “Jokowi” -- called on all stakeholders to immediately help in operations related to the missing flight. He explained that he had instructed the minister of transportation to immediately contact the families of the passengers and crewmembers.
"I and all of the people in Indonesia, we pray for the safety of the crew and passengers of QZ8501," Kompas.com quoted Widodo as saying. He expressed gratitude to the neighboring countries that had offered assistance.
Basarnas deployed ships and helicopters to the area between Belitung and Kalimantan’s capital Pontianak, the agency’s Jakarta chief said at a press conference.
"Our focus is looking along the beach, not into the sea, positions around Tanjung Pandan [city] and Pontianak," Sutrisno said, according to Kompas.com.
"We expect that before seven days, the plane has to be found," he added.
According to an AirAsia statement, the 155 passengers aboard the flight included 138 adults, 16 children and an infant. The crew was composed of an Indonesian captain, a French co-pilot and five cabin crew.
Those onboard included three South Koreans, a Singaporean, a Malaysian and a British national, with Indonesians accounting for the majority.
The statement added that the plane was on the submitted flight plan route and had requested an alternate route due to weather conditions.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine and Fisheries, its naval air force, and Singapore and Malaysia are cooperating in the search efforts.
Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority has deployed a C130 turboprop aircraft to help in the search, while Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said it deployed three ships.
Australia has also offered assistance, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reaching out to her counterparts from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. According to a statement by the Australian Prime Minister’s Press Office, Premier Tony Abbott spoke with Widodo, informing him that Australia had a P3 Orion surveillance aircraft waiting on standby to help in search operations.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak wrote on Twitter: “Very sad to hear that AirAsia IndonesiaQZ8501 is missing. My thoughts are with the families. Malaysia stands ready to help.”
AirAsia’s chief executive, Tony Fernandes, and other top personnel could not be reached by Anadolu Agency for comment.
AirAsia Malaysia CEO Aireen Omar, however, told AA the company is saddened by the latest development, and is doing its best in undertaking search and rescue operations.
Declining to provide additional comments, she said the company would only communicate via official statements.
In a message posted on his Twitter account, Fernandes said he was headed to Surabaya along with the airlines’ Indonesian management.
“My only thoughts are with the passengers and my crew. We put our hope in the SAR [search and rescue] operation and thank the Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysian governments,” he added.
“This is my worst nightmare,” he wrote, before posting: “Our priority is looking after all the next of Kin for my staff and passengers. We will do whatever we can. We continue to pass information as it comes.”
According to Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority, signals were lost as the plane was in Indonesia’s Flight Information Region (FIR) and more than 200 nautical miles southeast of the Singapore-Jakarta FIR boundary.
Sunday’s incident is the third faced by a Southeast Asian airline this year.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing March 8 en route to Beijing with 239 passengers, including 12 crewmembers, onboard after losing radio contact with Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control after leaving Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Despite the most intensive search in commercial aviation history, no trace of the plane has been found yet.
The troubled airlines suffered another blow when flight MH17 crashed July 17 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region near the border with Russia, killing all 298 people -- 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers -- aboard.
Neither of the parties involved in armed disturbances in the area -- Ukraine or pro-Russian rebels -- have come forward to claim responsibility for the suspected attack.
AirAsia, a low-cost carrier established by Fernandes 14 years ago, has a positive safety record and has not reported any missing flights or crashes previously.
Based in Kuala Lumpur, it began operations with short-distance flights to local destinations, but later expanded to regional hubs throughout Asia.
Its operations have been registered in different countries as subsidiaries of the AirAsia group, such as Thai AirAsia and AirAsia Indonesia.
Airbus has released a statement saying it will “make further factual information available as soon as the details have been confirmed and cleared by the authorities.” The missing plane had accumulated around 23,000 flight hours in approximately 13,600 flights, it added.
“The thoughts of the Airbus management and staff are with all those affected by Flight QZ 8501,” the statement said.
*AA correspondent P Prem Kumar contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur
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