Indonesian Airline Flight QZ8501 Captured Under The Sea

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The search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Where things stand

Searchers looking for more bodies and wreckage from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 continue to be hindered by tough weather conditions.

Ships, planes and helicopters are being used to try to find victims of the disaster. Most of the people on board the flight remain missing, and search teams are still looking for the main wreckage of the plane.

Efforts are being concentrated in a zone covering 1,575 square nautical miles (5,400 square kilometers) that officials believe is the "most probable area" for where the remains of the aircraft are located.

But on Friday, waves in the Java Sea as high as four meters (13 feet) were making it hard for divers to carry out underwater searches.

The weather is "the biggest obstacle," said Bambang Hermanu, chief of police in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, where much of the search operation is based.

Here's more key information about where things stand on Flight QZ8501:

The flight

What we know: The aircraft took off early Sunday from Surabaya, Indonesia, bound for Singapore. Roughly 35 minutes into the flight, the pilot asked air traffic control for permission to turn left and climb to a higher altitude to avoid bad weather. Minutes later, the plane disappeared from air traffic control's radar.

What we don't know: What happened on board after contact with the plane was lost. No distress call was received. Indonesian aviation authorities have suggested that the plane ascended despite permission being denied because of traffic.

Some experts have speculated that the aircraft might have experienced an aerodynamic stall because of a lack of speed or from flying at too sharp an angle to get enough lift. Analysts have also suggested that the pilots might not have been getting information from onboard systems about the plane's position, or that rain or hail from thunderstorms in the area could have damaged the engines.

Until the main wreckage of the plane is found, along with the flight recorders, experts have little evidence to support their theories.

The search

What we know: Search teams found debris and some bodies in the water Tuesday, 100 to 200 kilometers (about 60 to 120 miles) from the aircraft's last known location over the Java Sea, Indonesia's search and rescue agency said. Thirty bodies have so far been recovered from the sea, Indonesian officials said Friday.

USS Sampson, the U.S. Navy ship that is helping with the search, recovered two bodies on Thursday, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said Friday. Indonesia is leading the international search effort, with assistance from a range of countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United States.

What we don't know: The exact location of the body of the aircraft. An Indonesian search official told CNN on Wednesday that he thought sonar equipment had detected wreckage from Flight 8501 at the bottom of the Java Sea. But the country's search and rescue chief said the plane hadn't been found yet. Bad weather has hindered the search operation.

The people on board

 

What we know: The plane was carrying 155 passengers and seven crew members. The overwhelming majority of those on board were Indonesians. There were also citizens of Britain, France, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. Details are emerging about some of the people on the flight, recounted by family members and friends.

What we don't know: Which passengers and crew members' remains have been retrieved and which still remain missing in the Java Sea. Indonesian authorities have identified four of the recovered bodies so far. The first victim they identified, an Indonesian woman named Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, was buried Thursday. Many family members are waiting in Surabaya for news about their loved ones.

The investigation

What we know: The key to understanding what happened may be in the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, commonly known as black boxes. The black boxes, which are actually orange, are in the tail of Airbus 320-200s. If recovered, they will be taken to a lab in Jakarta, Indonesia, to be analyzed, said Tatang Kurniadi, head of Indonesia's National Committee for Transportation Safety. The batteries powering the "pingers" that send acoustic signals have only about 25 days of power left, he said.

What we don't know: Where plane's remains might have been taken by the elements. Investigators will need to use information gleaned from the flight recorders but also clues from the wreckage itself.

"The more bits I can put into my mosaic, the better my picture will be," aviation safety expert Michael Barr said. "The better the picture, the better I can come up with an understanding of what happened." But the conditions at sea make that work much more difficult than on land. "In the water, you are working with currents and winds, and so the pieces won't be where they had the initial impact."

The plane and the pilots

What we know: The 6-year-old Airbus A320-200, operated by AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, had accumulated around 23,000 flight hours in about 13,600 flights, according to Airbus. The plane's last scheduled maintenance was on November 16.

Flight 8501's veteran captain, Irianto, 53, had 20,537 flying hours, 6,100 of them with AirAsia on the Airbus A320, the airline said. The first officer, Remi Emmanuel Plesel, 46, had 2,275 flying hours, a reasonable amount for his position.

What we don't know: Whether technical problems, human error or other issues were involved in the crash. According to information from the Aviation Safety Network accident database, there have been 54 incidents involving the A320.

"In the A320 family, accidents and incidents range from fan-cowl detachment, landing gear collapse, bird strikes, right through to hull losses through pilot error," said Kane Ray, an analyst with the International Bureau of Aviation, a global aviation consulting group. "Most aircraft have teething problems, and in most cases, these are eradicated. Very rarely, these issues cause disasters -- largely because of a culmination of factors that lead to the event," Ray said.

AirAsia QZ8501: Forty Bodies Found In Missing Plane Search

 

Searchers have found what they think is the missing plane's slide

 

At least 40 bodies have been recovered from the sea in the search for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501, the Indonesian navy says.

The bodies were spotted along with debris floating in the Java Sea off the Indonesian part of Borneo, in one of the search zones for the plane.

There has been no official confirmation that the remains come from the plane.

The Airbus A320-200, carrying 162 people from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, disappeared on Sunday.

The search operation is now in its third day, with the area widened to cover 13 zones over land and sea.

In a separate development, there were reports of a second incident involving an AirAsia plane at Kalibo in the central Philippines. The reports said the plane overshot the runway.
 

Pictures of debris were taken by search and rescue aircraft

Rescuers 'busy'

During a news conference by the head of the search operation, shown live on Indonesian TV, pictures of the debris were shown including a body floating on the water.

Relatives of passengers on the plane watching the pictures were visibly shocked.

Later, the Indonesian navy reported that 40 bodies had been retrieved by one warship.

Its spokesman said the rescuers were continuing to recover bodies and were "very busy now".

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted to the families: "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences."

  

At the scene: Alice Budisatrijo, BBC News, Surabaya

 

They had been hoping for a miracle, but in the end they had to watch the worst possible news.
Relatives of the passengers screamed and wailed as local television networks showed pictures of what was clearly a human body floating in the water.

Grown men put their hands to their faces. At least two people collapsed and were taken out of the room on stretchers.

The mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, went from one crying relative to another, and at one point walked out with a grieving man, while telling him: "We don't have a choice. Today this happens to you, tomorrow it may happen to me. Nobody knows. So you have to be strong. Our lives belong to God."

Alice Budisatrijo witnessed relatives screaming and crying as they watched a news conference on screens in Surabaya

Search operation head Bambang Soelistyo said he was 95% certain the objects shown were from the plane, adding that a shadow was spotted under water which appeared to be in the shape of a plane.

All resources were now being sent to the area where the debris was found, he said.

Mr Soelistyo added that ships with more sophisticated technology were being deployed to check whether larger parts of the plane were submerged beneath the debris.

Indonesian civil aviation chief Djoko Murjatmodjo, quoted by AFP news agency, said "significant things" such as a passenger door and cargo door had been found.

He added that the objects had been found 160km (100 miles) south-west of Pangkalan Bun in Borneo's Central Kalimantan province.
At least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters joined the operation when it resumed at 06:00 local time on Tuesday (23:00 GMT Monday).

It's been a trying and exhausting wait for the more than 100 relatives who have been gathering in that room, but no-one could have been prepared for this ending.

Search and rescue operations are now in their third day

The operation, led by Indonesia, includes assistance from Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, with other offers of help from South Korea, Thailand, China and France. The US destroyer USS Sampson is on its way to the zone.
 

Communication lost:

 On board the plane were 137 adult passengers, 17 children and one infant, along with two pilots and five crew.

Most were Indonesian but the passengers included one UK national, a Malaysian, a Singaporean and three South Koreans.

Editor Geoffrey Thomas: AirAsia flight QZ8501 may "have have been caught in a severe thunderstorm updraft"

The plane left Surabaya at 05:35 Jakarta time on Sunday and had been due to arrive in Singapore two hours later.

Safety officials say the captain had asked for permission to take the plane higher but, by the time permission was granted, communication with the plane was lost.

It was officially declared missing at 07:55.

AirAsia previously had an excellent safety record and there were no fatal accidents involving its aircraft.

AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 to Singapore missing

An AirAsia Indonesia airliner flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board has gone missing.

Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control at 06:24 local time (23:24 GMT Saturday) over the Java Sea.

The plane, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared midway into the flight of more than two hours from the city of Surabaya. No distress call was made.

Bad weather was reported in the area, and an air search operation has now been suspended for the night.
Planes from Indonesia and Singapore had been scouring an area of sea between Kalimantan (Borneo) and Java. Some boats were reported to be continuing to search as night fell.

AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes: "We are devastated by what's happened"

No wreckage has been found, an Indonesian official told the BBC.

AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes, who has flown to Surabaya, said: "We don't want to speculate but right now of course the plane has been missing for 12 hours and there's a deep sense of depression here.

"This is a massive shock to us and we are devastated by what has happened. It's unbelievable."
He said the captain had more than 20,500 flight hours, almost 7,000 of them with AirAsia.

The flight left Surabaya in eastern Java at 05:35 local time (22:35 GMT) and was due to arrive in Singapore at 08:30 (00:30 GMT).

The missing jet had requested a "deviation" from the flight path to avoid thick storm clouds, AirAsia said.
Indonesia's transport ministry said the pilot had asked permission to climb to 38,000ft (11,000m).
Ministry official Djoko Murjatmodjo said the request "could not be approved at that time due to traffic, there was a flight above, and five minutes later [flight QZ8501] disappeared from radar".

Flight QZ8501 was supposed to arrive early this morning. Hours later the families of the passengers gathered here have very little information.

Airport officials are keeping them well away from the media and trying to make them comfortable.
The scenes at Changi are reminiscent of those in Kuala Lumpur immediately after MH370 went missing in March: anxious relatives waiting for any news on their loves ones, a media frenzy, but no answers.


A few hours ago many of the relatives at the crisis centre in the airport still seemed calm - glued to their phones, perhaps trying to find any news of the plane or stay in touch with friends and loved ones
But more than 12 hours since the plane took off they are looking increasingly worried. Officials still have no idea what happened to the aircraft. The governor of East Java, Soekarwo, the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, and the chief executive of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, have come to talk to the relatives to assure them that all is being done to locate the missing Airbus.

AirAsia, a budget airline which owns 49% of AirAsia Indonesia, is based in Malaysia and has never lost a plane.

However, 2014 has been a difficult year for aviation in Asia: Malaysia's national carrier Malaysia Airlines has suffered two losses - flights MH370 and MH17.
Flight MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew. The wreckage, thought to be in southern Indian Ocean, has still not been located. MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board.