AirAsia Flight Goes Missing Between Surabaya and Singapore

An AirAsia Airbus A320-200 aircraft with 162 people on board went missing on Sunday morning.

AirAsia flight QZ 8501, which left Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, on Sunday 28 December 2014 at around 05:20 was scheduled to land at Singapore Changi Airport at 08:30.

AirAsia said that the aircraft lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 Surabaya local time.

There is a one hour time difference between Surabaya and Singapore. Surabaya is GMT +7, while Singapore is GMT +8.

There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer.

Including passengers and crew, there were 155 Indonesians, 1 Singaporean, 1 Malaysian, 3 South Koreans, 1 French and 1 U.K. national onboard AirAsia QZ 8501.

The captain in command had a total of 20,537 flying hours of which 6,100 flying hours were with AirAsia Indonesia on the Airbus A320. The first officer had a total of 2,275 flying hours with AirAsia Indonesia.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this incident. 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,” said Sunu Widyatmoko, CEO of AirAsia Indonesia. “We will do everything possible to support them as the investigation continues and have already mobilized a support team to help take care of their immediate needs, including accommodation and travel arrangements. A briefing center has also been set up in Surabaya for the families.”

For the families in Singapore, there is also an emergency briefing room at Changi International Airport Terminal Two and the airline has established an emergency call centre in Indonesia. The Indonesian numbers for relatives or friends who may have been on board the flight are: +622129270811 or 031-8690855 or 031-2986790 (Surabaya). Please note that these numbers are not for media enquiries, there is a different number for that.

All AirAsia flights are operated with Airbus A320-200 aircraft. The aircraft registration of QZ 8501 is PK-AXC. It last had scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.

In a statement issued around 13:25 (Singapore time on Sunday, 28 December 2014), AirAsia said, "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 (ATC)."

Search and rescue operations are being conducted, under the guidance of National Search and Rescue Agency Republic of Indonesia (BASARNAS).

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