Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 LIVE UPDATES — RT News An AirAsia flight with over 160 people on board travelling to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya went missing after losing contact with air traffic control, the company said on Sunday. A search mission is underway. Sunday, December 28 No wreckage of flight QZ5801 has been found, an Indonesian Navy official told the BBC. He added weather conditions were poor in the search area. Only about 1h our of daylight left in #QZ8501 search area. Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) A British national was on board missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). We have been informed by the local authorities that one British national was on board. Their next of kin has been informed, and we stand ready to provide consular assistance, an FCO official said. Malaysia Airlines, which lost two of its Boeing jumbo jets earlier this year, empathizes with AirAsia. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all family and friends of those on board QZ8501,” Malaysia airlines said on Twitter. The missing aircraft, an A320-200, was delivered to AirAsia in October 2008 and had since “accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours during some 13,600 flights,” says an official statement by Airbus. The company has promised to assist in the investigation of the plane’s disappearance. It’s been more than eight hours since contact was lost with AirAsia flight QZ8501. The plane only had fuel for 4.5 hours. Indonesian national search and rescue radars haven’t detected signals from the emergency location transmitter, says Sutrisno, the head of Basarnas, the national agency in Jakarta, as cited by Detik. The transmitter becomes operational once a plane is struck from outside or falls into the water. Either the plane managed to land smoothly or the transmitter was defective, the official says. There werent seven but six crew members on board QZ8501, says Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Indonesian Transport Ministry. That makes the overall number of people on the plane 161, not 162, as previously believed. There were 23 no-shows on the flight, according to passenger manifest. No distress signal had been sent from the missing plane, said Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Indonesian Transport Ministry, according to Reuters. The missing plane’s captain, who goes by only one name, Iriyanto, usual for Indonesians, had a total of 6,100 flying hours, AirAsia says. The first officer - presumably French pilot Remi Emmanual Plesel - had logged 2,275 flying hours.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 11:16:17 +0000
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